Episode 158: Setting Expectations - Good for Leadership and Staff Alike

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I'm grateful to welcome you to this edition of "Around with Randall". Today we jump into the concept, and if you're the leader it's about what you might see and if you have people that you report to, or an individual, or you are one of the people that's part of the team gives you a perspective of what maybe they're looking at about respect versus being liked, and how to move people forward. I want to preface this by bringing it into maybe more personal vantage point. Earlier on in my career I wanted to more likely be a Headmaster of a school and that if I was ever so so lucky, and I wasn't because my career kind of took a turn into really heavy healthcare philanthropy out of education, earlier on in, years ago during my professional life, I wanted to explain to parents based on my own experiences, based on teachings, based on the things that I learned from people that I have an immense amount of respect for that schools, and in some ways parenting, is like being a Riverboat Admiral. And yes, this will make sense in a second, that the student or the child is the captain and that as long as they're on the river whether they're on the left side of the river or the right side of the river, really we don't care. But they got to stay on the river and the reason why is because we know where the final destination is. We know where the river ends. And the boundaries which you're going to hear me talk a lot about are the river's edge and where as parents and as educators we want to step in, more often than not, is when the riverboat docks and the captain heads up the hill and you're like no no no get back on the boat because we know where we're all headed. Whether you're on your left side or the right side of the river we don't care.

That's the way I parent. I work very hard to say to my children, and I'm fortunate enough that my wife's a 100% smarter than I am as a parent, we work really hard to say look here's the destination. How you get there, there are a lot of different options, but getting there and the way in which we do is not an option. We're going to accomplish what we're trying to get to. Sometimes that requires a little smack on the side of the hip to say nope get back in the river. This leads us to the concept of leadership, particularly in nonprofits. There's a lot of chaos, and this came up with a client as they're making a pretty large transition from maybe a lot of latitude for the gift officers and the teams as to where everybody's going, what their metrics might be, how they're going to be evaluated, to a more centralized view of look we're going to do best practice, we're going to use data to inform, and that's causing some consternation, shifting. And by the way, new leaders are beginning to emerge and I'm working with them, and I've used this analogy and I've kind of watched and thought about it and figured it might make an interesting podcast. Why is it that we want boundaries? And this isn't just about children, this is also about adults. Why is it that we function better when we are within the riverbed, to steal from my metaphor a few minutes ago, and kind of know where the destination is and have people leaders who keep us moving, moving down the river.

There are some really important psychological perspectives on this. Overall, when we have boundaries and we know the rules, the system works better. If you think about it in the biggest macro perspective, you can, our country, if you're in the United States or your country if you're listening in other places, there are rules. If they are reasonable rules, if they are rules society moves forward when we think about it from let's just say driving. If the reason there are speed limits is there's not chaos and frankly although we, no one likes a speeding ticket or running a stop sign, we like when everything moves the way it should so we can get from A to B. Inside an organization that's about goals and what our strategic vision is and based on our mission what are our priorities, where we putting our resources, what this all engenders is a simple concept. Trust. Think about the driving down the road and the value of having boundaries, the fact that you come up to a stop light, if it's green you have trust in the system that the traffic coming across you stops on their red light as yours is green, and in some ways that parallels an office. If I know I need to be going to X I know that other people are coming with me and that the cross traffic is going to stop or slow down or we're going to merge together. There's a trust in where we're

headed.

Inside of that trust are kind of five major things to think about. It allows people to embrace responsibility when they know the boundaries or the rules because they know where my role is and what I can do if I choose to to accept that role, and assume the responsibility of that role. Number two, it increases the idea of safety and security. If I know what my role is, and I know what your role is, and I know what you over here your role is and we're kind of all heading this direction, naturally, from a psychological perspective I feel a sense of direction, safety, and that's a positive. The third is that the concept of, I'll use free will in a very loose perspective, if I choose not to follow the boundaries, the rules, kind of where we're all headed that there are probably consequences and so you have some free will to run either side back to my original metaphor of the river, but also know that you can't go too far and dock the the riverboat and head up the hill because at some point somebody can say no that's not what we're doing. We got to move in this direction. And then you have a choice whether you want to do that and you get a choice inside the river to kind of operate on your own, it builds a sense of respect internally for the overall process. And by the way for people who lead with great boundaries, communication. We'll get into the details here in a second. And finally it helps to regulate emotion. If we all know that everybody's kind of moving down in the same way, there's always going to be strife and trials and challenges that cause emotion, but if everybody's moving in the same direction we have a lot less of loose emotions or random emotions. The idea of boundaries is about creating an opportunity for people to still grow by making mistakes again.

Is the right side of the river better than the left? Don't know. That's individual choice, and we make them in safer environments so we learn from them. We also have the chance to think about the different learning styles. Some people are needing lots of boundaries in the same organization some need less. I think about the way my kids learn. My son's just mentally just really sharp. I mean he's just gets, explain it once he's got it. He's off to the races. My daughter is equally as sharp if you're paying attention because she has such an innate understanding of kind of a rhythm of music that when we do ABCs if you just say okay repeat after me a b CDE e like I did with our son he got it did it once he got it. As soon as I introduced a song into it she could sing it. How do people's learning styles adjust?

All of this brings us to kind of this thought process of how do we create boundaries. This is why we have metrics. This is why we do strategic planning, both as an organization and hopefully departmentally. I used to take my team away from the office and say Here's the overall goal of the organization, what are we going to do to meet that goal, and I had prep work and each one of them had to come into the meeting and identify what their strategic initiatives were and then follow that up with what their metrics would be. For gift officers that was moves management. For database people, it was like what are you going to do? That's accountability, driven that is going to move the database forward and make us improve in terms of process. If it was annual giving it was what are we looking at to create a sense of sequencing, of messaging, communications. How do you fill that in? Everybody kind of came together and what that was and became was the boundaries, and as the leader my job was to create the bigger boundaries. And then they got to define what the river was going to look like for the next year, and so how do you do that. How do you set these boundaries? And with the client I've been dealing with for the first time they're really owning metrics, and it's become interesting because they're setting the metrics which is to be expected a little lower than I think everyone wanted because at this point it's the beginning of the process, self-identified metrics. How much am I going to raise? How many moves? Who are my key people that I need to be building relationships with and asking eventually in the next year? And we ran the numbers and it came back very quickly and easily understood that they're self-identified, weren't going to meet the bigger goal and so there's now this kind of conversation, what I'm coaching this leader regarding major gifts and and her leadership of the team is exactly the subject. How do you create an environment where boundaries are easily understood, embraced, and executed upon to get to a common goal?

And that's the tactical. Five things to think about when you're establishing a culture of accountability, a culture that understands its boundaries, individually. Number one, have to know the person, you have to empathize, and really be creative and open to different ways of explaining why this is important. I'll go back to my daughter and my son, which I talked about a moment ago in this idea of learning. I'm a little hard-headed. My daughter who is very different than I am from the way she looks at the world, the way she kind of thinks, the way she understands kind of the the bigger picture of what's being done, the way she learns requires me to think about her learning not mine. I've already learned the alphabet and if I kept banging on the fact that my 5-year-old can't memorize 26 letters just like my son could do in the exact same way three years or four or five years earlier, everybody gets frustrated and nobody gets the goal which is to learn the alphabet. Kindergarten, you know preschool kindergarten and she caused me as I'm doing this with her and her mother as well to re-evaluate am I teaching her the right way? No. The person, no, as soon as we put on YouTube and I showed her one video of a song and we watched it maybe two or three times she knew the alphabet because she could sing the song. We literally 5 minutes before she couldn't get the letters because her mind learns differently. Empathy. How do you help them understand where they fit into the bigger picture? Are they a visual learner? Are they a numbers person? Do they need a big picture? Are they just put the head down and go? You need to evaluate where everyone's at and realize as the leader you might have to do it differently for each one of them with the same objective in mind. And if you're the person who's being supervised, being open enough to say I learn a little bit differently, could we look at it, not change the metrics, change the accountability, change the expectation, but change the way we get to it, know your people, and know that they're all different and find the communication, and the design, and the the value in explaining that value based on what they need to meet the boundaries to stay within them, feel like they're part of the team that they know where they're going.

Number two is to stay consistent. I steal from this a little bit when I think about it from athletics. The best coaches I ever played for, and the best coaches by the way today are very consistent in that they are consistent, the rules are the rules and it doesn't mean the rules have to be the same for everybody but everybody knows what the rules are and they don't change very often, or if they do it's for a very very good reason. I had a gift officer one time who lived, and I've talked about this in podcast way way out a little bit further than than the average bear so to speak comparison to our office, and she really, really good. She was awesome, raising a ton of money. And when we do the evaluation the only time she ever asked for anything she says traffic's a problem from where I come based on the traffic patterns of Omaha. Could I come in a little bit later, reasonably consistent, is I need you in the office reasonable amount of time so we have interaction. I too kind of know what's going on illogical consistency is nope, everybody's got to be the exact same, everybody needs different things. My children need different kinds of parenting. The rules are generally the same. The way I apply them and the way that I not enforce them but certainly teach them is different for each one of them for the same rules. We do the same things but I'm consistent. It's a reasonable consistency. Metrics are a way, how many moves we're doing, whatever your goals were, do we have sub goals are way to can create that consistency.

Number three seems obvious but frankly I don't I see it too often where it's not done, toeing the the boundaries of what you're trying to accomplish. What is the bigger goal? Why do we have metrics if is an example it isn't to be tough on people and execute power. The boundaries are set for metrics because we want to help people get to their goal to to see accomplishment. We have to reach these goals, defining boundaries about when they come in and when they don't, and dress code is meant to create some level of boundaries or consistency for everybody. And yes, organizations have rules and things of that nature. You need to follow those, but defining those boundaries and being clear about them and communicating them is critical.

Number four, allowing for negotiation and taking that negotiation or the concern seriously. A new gift officer, even though we have metrics as an example, is going to have a different conversation with the leader than someone who's been there for a long time because they don't have a portfolio. They don't have their relationships. That doesn't mean that they don't have metrics, that they don't have boundaries. Boundaries may be a little different so you don't need a rigid series of laws or rules that are so arcane that some people can't fit in them because of circumstances outside their control. An extreme example, if someone gets really ill and misses three months legitimately so are you still going to hold them to their metrics for what it was established when the year began, even though you didn't know they were going to miss three months. They're really good employee, of course not. Negotiation is important, but not compromising the boundaries.

Number five is reinforcing the good, and hopefully constructive, correction of the bad. And this is all about communication. How do you reward people? How do you tell them they're doing a great job and not just formally. I watch my son's eyes as I coach his basketball team. He wants to get better at basketball. I've told him the only way to get better at basketball is to go out and practice. He finally came and he said because I'm not going to do it for him, how do I do that? And I said Jay give you some drills. If you do this every day you're going to get better. Doggone it in about 10 days the improvement has been unbelievable. Reinforce the good, I'm proud of you, not just for the outcome but for the effort. What is it that someone's doing in your office, whether it's making those extra phone calls or going the extra mile with a donor, or really, really delving into how to build deeper, more meaningful relationships with prospects and donors, or the data and the reporting is just outstanding a special event went well. How do you informally say through verbal or written means, you're doing awesome and I'm proud of you. Thank you, thank you for what you're doing. At the same time it's also the corrective, going back to my son. He's like the other kids are scoring more and I'm like I drive home every day and they're out on the driveway practicing. Why do you think they're getting better? The corrective measure was not to harp on him, not being as good but to say if you want this here's how we can do it. It's a realization they feel the impact of that negative issue or the realization they're not where they should be. This is why we have metrics and we don't just set one goal, go raise $500,000 in a year. How about we look at how that works out every 12 months. How many calls do I have to make? How many visits do I have? Do I have the right portfolio? Do I have the right people? Do I have the right asks amount so that I can begin to break that up into months, cycles, so I can help them as a leader. And if you're the person equivalent to my son, the gift officer, or the database person, or the special events person, I can have corrective measure before we get to the end and it's a failure knowing who these people are and being empathetic and staying consistent as to the bigger boundaries, but defining those boundaries and easy recognizable, ways allowing for there to be some negotiation conversation. And taking that seriously is a part of the process. When you establish those boundaries the goals, the metrics, and reinforcing the good and helping see the corrective measures of what the bad was or what the challenge was allows you to be a good leader. And by the way, if you're the one last point who is the gift officer is the database person who's being led, I'm going to give you what I tell my son, I set boundaries, expectations. And I just say plainly, I'm sometimes a little hard on you for two reasons because I love you and because I think you're capable. And I used to tell my teams if you're listening to this and you're the gift officer, it's not because they don't like you, it's because they do like you and they think you're capable and they want to help you get there. Boundaries are great for both sides of the equation, both those that need to execute and those who are looking to create the boundaries from a leadership perspective. Don't run from them. Embrace them, but do so in a way that makes everybody more productive.

Don't forget to check out the blogs at Hallettphilanthropy.com. Couple posts a week, you get an RSS feed right to you. And if you'd like to communicate with me, reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Tell me more about what you think of this podcast or any other. Leave a review, if you can, on Apple, or Downcast, or YouTube, or wherever. Tell others if you think this is valuable. Share it with someone. nonprofit's sure going through interesting moments right now. We're really challenged. Budgets are tight, tings of that nature. Don't forget my favorite all-time saying, because you're the first, some people make things happen - that's you. Some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. Our job as people who make things happen in the nonprofit philanthropic world is to help those people and things that are wondering what happened, and at the end of the day that makes a worthwhile profession. And I hope you feel that and I hope you know that the boundaries that are created, that are set for you or, and, or the ones that you're helping to create are a way in which are going to help you be someone who makes things happen for the things you believe in. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on another edition of "Around with Randall" and don't forget make it a great day.