Recruiting is broken! It is costly, outdated and misused. Succession planning, important to any business’s long-term success, is the underused, less expensive and more effective alternative to recruiting for difficult-to-find management positions. Realizing this dream, however, requires putting in place a solid road map so companies can identify their high-potential players and … [More]
What Difference Does Leadership Make?
“What difference does leadership make” may sound like a rhetorical question, but there’s value in understanding how our community continues to advance and improve opportunities for residents and businesses. To go beyond simply wanting something to making it happen requires purposeful decision making and a broad view of the impact. Working with Valley Leadership, which our Guest … [More]
Commonsense Leadership
From rallying the team to hitting it out of the park, every leader needs to understand the mental game. It’s what separates winners from survivors, and champions from second place — it’s what gives one’s team the edge, and the strength to forge ahead through adversity. This book shows how to boost performance with tips and advice gathered over 45 years of working with major … [More]
Lead Like a Guide
Discover the leadership strengths of world-class mountain guides and see how developing and applying these principles can help one reach for the highest summits in work — and in life. Maxwell teaches key leadership lessons gained from a decade spent traveling with world-class mountain guides and more than 200 top business school participants. He shares insights drawn from … [More]
No Time for Teamwork?
“Culture?” The half-formed question hung in the air between the puzzled speaker and a room full of students. We were hosting Larry, a founder of three successful energy startups, as a guest lecturer in our seminar on corporate culture at the University of Pennsylvania. We had just asked the veteran entrepreneur what we thought was a simple warm-up question: How do you create … [More]
The Good News Continues
Charitable giving by American individuals, estates, foundations and corporations increased 12.2 percent over two years in 2014 and 2015 (the largest two-year increase since 2003-2005). Today’s Americans, in fact, give one billion dollars per day in their efforts to assist others, accounting for $373.25 billion in 2015. According to the Giving USA 2016 report, total … [More]
Overhead and the Nonprofit
Today’s nonprofits often find themselves looking over their shoulders. “They worry about the scrutiny or debate that may rage over their spending while, at the same time, understanding the critical need to invest in their enterprises in order to fulfill their missions,” says Robert Ashcraft, Ph.D., executive director of ASU’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit … [More]
Are Unknowing Mistakes Driving Away Customers?
Loyal customers are hard to come by these days. We all know this. After struggling through years of turmoil and uncertainty, the last thing most leaders would purposely do is take customers for granted. And yet, in many a company, all the fervent efforts to attract and retain them are falling curiously flat. It’s not that they’re storming angrily out the door. It’s that their … [More]
Better Branding = Fundraising Impact
Two simple questions lie at the heart of a nonprofit’s branding and marketing efforts: Who? and Why? Who is the nonprofit helping, and why? “Organizations often forget what they’re really about,” says Russ Haan, founder of Phoenix-based Charles Russell, a visual storytelling consultancy. Knowing that answer, he says, is the essence of a strong brand and a catalyst for … [More]
Leadership
Leadership experts David Pendleton and Adrian Furnham present an innovative model for leadership success in a turbulent world. When times are hard, leadership makes the greatest difference. This updated second edition shows how to make the kind of difference that all organizations, both public and private sector, want and need. Early chapters show the powerful effect leadership … [More]
Fix It
One factor, more than any other, causes the problems business leaders fear most. Lackluster performance, sinking profits and unmet stockholder expectations all stem from one source: a massive decline in employee engagement. Rather than blaming employees themselves for the decline, however, the Workplace Accountability Study reveals how to fix it. The secret lies with those who … [More]
Releasing the Hidden Innovation Brakes
The senior vice president for product development and his team had spent nearly 18 months developing a new range for an international cleaning products business. Initial customer research in two European markets had identified a need for office cleaning machines with a more efficient use of the cleaning agent, and the project had passed through the company’s structured product … [More]
Who Manages the Endowment?
Though they are only one part of a nonprofit’s cash equation, endowments provide a predictable source of income and may be a lifeline during economic downturns. They allow nonprofit entities to produce income as well as growth. But who should manage the assets in an endowment? It might seem a single executive or executives seated at the boardroom table are best suited. After … [More]
Return on Integrity
Core values have been featured in countless books over the last decade, but none has taken the search as deep or has focused on the intersection of leaders’ personal values and those of their organization. At this intersection, Return on Integrity reveals the linchpin of leadership and legacy. Core values are not just a guide; they should be the basis of every decision and … [More]
Powerful Strategic Planning
Annually — or every three to five years — nonprofit board members gear up for strategic planning retreats, assessing the organization’s performance over the previous year or tackling long-term planning. Some view strategic planning as nothing more than a label: Yes. We have a strategic plan. Check. Others see such planning as a waste of time or money. Still others see its value … [More]
The ‘Boys Club’ Needs to Include Girls
Whether it’s Hollywood movie studios and their paucity of female directors, the tech industry and its alarming exodus of frustrated women, or the stifling male fraternity culture that dominates Wall Street, women continue to be marginalized in the business world. The vast majority of CEOs responding to a McKinsey survey noted that hiring females is essential to “getting the … [More]
Creating a Culture of Philanthropy
Ask five different executives sitting on nonprofit boards to define “culture of philanthropy,” and five different definitions will rise to the top. Board members may also differ in their opinion of the role they should play in building a culture of engagement and philanthropy within their nonprofit. Clarity on these two points is essential, however; if organizations can … [More]
Dealstorming
There’s a good chance even those who think they’re applying teamwork to their challenges may be operating inside a sales silo, not building a truly collaborative team across the whole company. The more disciplines that are brought into the process, the more unlikely (but effective!) solutions the team can come up with. Sanders explains his seven-step Dealstorming process and … [More]
