Are you really encouraging open communication?



Active, open, honest and SAFE communication
may be the key to process improvement and the
difference between success and failure.



The successful working environment these days encourages a fairly open dialogue between management and employees.  Process improvement often depends on honest engagement without fear of reprisal... by either parties. 

This interesting blog by Ron Ashkenas, managing partner for Schaffer Consulting, for HBR Blog Network, offers some great insights on views and strategies from both sides of the responsibility table.  Just click on the link below to read the short article.  It just takes a few minutes and offers some very useful ideas you might want to put into practice. 

Are you really encouraging communication?

Quite a good read.

Cheers!

DCR

Want to gain support from grant makers -- think program efficiency

Green equals growth and
sometimes you have to prune back.  Really.

I ran across this article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the title just jumped out at me.  Follow the link at the end of the article.

In today's tough economic times, private foundation' grant dollars are even more precious to nonprofits.  Doesn't it make sense your organization should to be current with private foundation thinking and expectation?  Of course it does. 

Grant makers, public and private, along with individual donors, want to know how their investment dollars make a difference -- sure.  The question is... how can you position your agency to utilize grant funding in the most efficient manner?  Does that mean partnering and collaboration with another nonprofit with a similar mission?  How about stepping up for an outside evaluation of your programs and specifically, their results?  Understanding your core mission and cutting the programs that aren't working = efficiency -- a good thing.

Demonstrating that your organization is progressive and understands the importance of every dollar and is willing to make necessary changes to offer the most for that buck is impressive to grant makers.

As a nonprofit consultant, one of the services I provide is that outside opinion/evaluation on programs, mission relevance, and efficiency. 

The Philanthropy' article has some good suggestions.  It is an easy read with some excellent tips to starting a new self-examination process. Worth the read!   Here is the article

Cheers,
DCR

A slight twist on an old favorite -- teamwork

Team success depends on careful planning

J. Richard Hackman is the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teams. The misperceptions that are summarized in this post are explored in greater depth in his new book Collaborative Intelligence: Using Teams to Solve Hard Problems (Berrett-Koehler, 2011).

Perhaps you have felt some frustration with your team's results, interactions, performance or communication.  Now might be a very good time for you to revaluate what you have been taught about teamwork, hands-on involvement; conditioning the team and bringing in new players.You can rethink the teamwork paradigm to your organization's advantage.

Prof. Hackman brings up some though-provoking ideas to our whole concept of team, including the individual players and leadership.  It turns out, bigger isn't necessarily better, nor is communication primarily through technology. 

Interesting reading.

Enjoy,

Diana