Hal’s Blog

Results for Meetings

I am now completing a small book on result-driven meetings. It builds on work my colleague, Robyn Faucy-Washington, and I are doing with Manatee County, Florida, and other clients on driving togetherness by targets rather than agendas.

As part of this work, I am looking at the books and articles, viewing the videos, and listening to the Podcasts reflecting the latest thinking on effective meetings. Here are four findings I find somewhat gloomy:

The current advice on effective meetings sounds similar to that I have seen for many years. It starts with the focus on supportive group process. From one guide: “The work of meetings occurs through conversations and can be thought of as a series of conversations that create meaning and movement to action and results.” This certainly favors those who like to talk far more than those with an itch to act.
The focus is on civility and consensus. Make sure everyone is in agreement, no matter how many sharp edges and divergent thoughts are sanded smooth. There is no support voiced for letting divergent thinkers try anything new—until everyone agrees on it.
Most advice is about structure. I see templates and formats on annotated agendas, meeting roles, content summaries, and the like. The gist: complete these forms and you will have a great meeting. Among other shortcomings, this lawful approach rules out spontaneity and fireworks that are the heart of many collaborations.
The point is to decide things, not act on them. The meeting is judged by what happens during it, not after it. Never mind if there is reduced energy as the meeting ends and no zestful individuals ready to be sparkplugs for implementation.

In Results1st we speak to setting targets and then designing activities to achieve them for all projects and all meetings. Contrast that with this advice I read: “Once you consider who’s in the room, it’s an opportunity to redesign or tweak the agenda.” In other words, start with the people present and then figure out what they can best do. Holding the process and the structure constant and letting the results vary is the opposite of. what I see high performing groups achieve–including in their meetings.

leadership

I have an heir!

*Robyn Faucy-Washington,*
*Executive Director of Results 1st*

No, I have not found a long lost relative. What I have found is a wonderful partner to carry on my work on result tools and practice for years to come. I met Robyn Faucy-Washington as a client. She has been CEO of Neuro Challenge, the organization helping persons and families with Parkinson’s in Sarasota, Florida, and surrounding counties. The group serves people throughout Florida and, virtually, throughout the country. At Neuro Challenge, she doubled both number served and income in short order. She also created the largest Parkinson’s specific event in the nation.

Robyn and I have formed a new organization called Results 1st. I am billed as its Creator, and she is Chief Executive. I will devote time to strategy and writing, and she will lead projects with governments, foundations, individual donors, and nonprofits. Click here for more information on Robyn and our new organization.

I have always preached that the person is more important than the plan when it comes to achievement. This was an opportunity to apply my own sermons and I am delighted with the result. Robyn has incredibly high energy, an itch to act, humor, and gift in helping others. She is also a remarkably quick study when it comes to picking up on the tools and approaches I have honed over many years working with groups and people.

Thanks, Robyn, for taking the risk to start Results 1st. Our name says it all!

innovation Wednesday Whimsy

“The End of Average”

This is the title of a provocative book by Todd Rose. He makes a compelling case for the variance among members of any category– whether animal, vegetable or mineral. From the introduction:

In this book, you will learn that just as there is no such thing as average body size, there is no such thing as average talent, average intelligence, or average character. Nor are there average students or average employees—or average brains, for that matter.

His logic rests on math, not ideology about uniqueness. Study after study cited shows that when a set of factors is used to derive an average among items that no specimen is average on more than one factor and most are average on none. This led Rose to speak to the “Jaggedness Principle” to define the weak correlation among factors when arrayed on a continuum.

Now to the merger of beliefs and statistics much later in the book:

But now we know there is no such thing as an average person, and we can see the flaw in the equal access approach to opportunity: if there is no such thing as an average person then there can never be equal opportunity on average. Only equal fit creates equal opportunity.

I think of the old adage “If the shoe fits…” The variation in fit is determined not by the shoe but by where I am going and have opportunity to go.

Community Building Wednesday Whimsy

Trust what I do

I just finished reading Trust by Pete Buttigieg. He is amazingly thoughtful and insightful for a politician. One of his points is that trust is best seen in behavior. A short passage:

If we think of trust as the belief that someone will do what is hoped or promised, the most basic human way to decide whether to trust that person is to notice what they have done before.

Without putting it so eloquently, I followed this maxim with colleagues when we spoke with small-town residents interested in learning about our self-help approach to getting needed water or wastewater improvements. We noted that while we could take five meetings to develop trust that this would mean five more weeks of their carrying or boiling water. Instead, how about we each (residents and my organization) promise the other something and meet again. We will trust each other if we deliver. That worked.

Pete goes on to describe many more philosophical dimensions of trust in the book but none take away anything from the simple truth of trusting what I do more than what I say. As he notes, this is about performance. We speak of our “trusty” knife, friend, or steed because they are predictably there for us.

Many other words can also boil down to behaviors. Holler if you want my take on behavioral definitions of empowerment, self-esteem, collaboration, and other abstract terms. And trust me if I respond!

Tags trust

innovation leadership

Strategy & Tactics

I was sipping coffee with my friend Bruce late last week. When he works with groups, he has one key question: What problem are you trying to solve? On the one hand, I love any focus that brings concentration and intentional thinking to an organization, and problem solving does that. On the other, I see all the literature on being driven by assets rather than barriers.

I asked Bruce if he thought problems and opportunities belonged at opposite ends of the same continuum. He said he did not think so and that problem-solving was strategic while opportunity response was tactical. That really prompted me to think deeper.

I get his logic. Problems are long term and durable. We need strategies to solve them. Opportunities are often fragile and short lived. You must take the tide before it has gone out and see where it takes you. This, for me, elevates the term “tactics.” It also frees me from the bromide observation that “every problem is just an opportunity in disguise”. This is such a limiting proposition as it suggests beginning with problems. To find and harness opportunity, I do not need to start with a problem or a strategy. Something looks like it could add value and I jump to try it. This is innovation, which is a superb method of planned change.

As I think about it most methods are tactical. When I hear organizations proclaim that their strategy is innovation, I typically find little experimentation. They have located trying new things at too high a level. Drop down to the level of what is spontaneous and generate both heat and light. Who has an idea for a new approach that will outperform a present practice? Good tactics may sometimes precede rather than follow good strategy!

Tags approach, innovation, leadership, logic, methods, opportunity, problemsolving, strategy, tactic

Wednesday Whimsy

On Categorizations

How do you categorize?

Greetings. Before the Wednesday whimsey, I wanted to acknowledge the eventful days in our country. In addition to insurrection at the Capitol we have COVID raging, racial injustice persisting, and an economic situation that is widening the gap between those doing well and those doing poorly. My fervent hope is that the country turns from handwringing over its great divides to a way forward to solve problems that face all of us. At heart, our miseries—and their solutions—are a public good. The Country starts with us. May we begin with civility and a respect for our rule of law. And may we reduce our assertions to each other and increase the questions that are essential to discovery.

Few of us can keep many separate elements in mind unless it be a matter of great passion—such as my diverse collection of comic books in my youth. Instead, we rely on categories—groupings with some logic that let us retrieve information and make sense of patterns and connections. I was reminded of how tricky this is a few days ago when my IT guru sat with me to reorganize the icons on my iPhone. My granddaughter had done this for me years ago and I found her organizing principles enduring and yet unclear. I simply cannot readily find the icons in the categories in which they have rested for years. So on to organization!

Some choices were easy, such as Spectrum, HULU, and “Watch ESPN” in the category of “TV.” Others were more complicated. Here are some examples:

YouTube. Does it go in TV, entertainment, or instructions? I decided I used it most frequently for amusement, so put it in entertainment.
Strava. Should my bicycle computer app go under health, sports, or GPS? I decided on health because I think that should be the primary value for me.
Cars.com. I love to see prices and descriptions of older cars for sale. Should I put in hobbies or transportation? I chose transportation sensing I would remember it better given the natural link to cars.

As I think about it, my decision rules are ad hoc. With YouTube the choice was based on primary purpose. With Strava, I shifted to value and selected aspiration rather than function. And with Cars, I let ease of word association override both purpose and value.

Categories are important in they create what linguists call frames—ways not just of organizing but of thinking. But they also in my case expose different criteria for different choices. I hope you have more clarity than I do on the rules used to put your life in order. It does seem important. Then, I remember the philosopher Emerson writing: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” That seems important, too.

Tags decisionmakers, frames, frameworks, organization

Community Building

Results are Easy. Right?

Conference Event

My apologies for going dark for several weeks. A house sale and move consumed me. I am now in Bradenton, FL, for the winter. Here’s a thought from my colleague, Robyn Faucy-Washington, CEO of Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s. Robyn faced and overcame the challenges of conventional thinking for large convenings.

Results are Easy. Right?

Recently, Susie Bowie, Executive Director of the Manatee Community Foundation, forwarded me a blog post from Seth Godin titled “The Gift of Results.” An excerpt from the article read “Results show up. They’re easy to see, easy to measure and they persist.” Wow! Isn’t that the truth?

So why do we get distracted from the focus on results? Why are so many organizations guided by tradition rather than accomplishment?

I had the opportunity to participate in a Results 1 st Prototype Class in 2018. Hal Williams, creator of Results 1st, guided the class for me and 9 other local non-profit leaders. In the opening session, Hal asked me what my organization’s results were. I proceeded to proudly tell him that we served 2,000 people annually in 5 counties with over 6,000 points of service. Hal replied, “So what?” I was slightly offended (maybe more than slightly- I may have gasped and grabbed my chest) and confused. Those numbers were impressive for a small non-profit organization.

The “so what” means – what are those 2,000 people getting from your organization? Are your programs inspiring behavior changes in your clients? What gains are they achieving?

My Results 1st Prototype Class was very timely as I was creating an Expo—a new one-day educational event for people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers. I wanted it to make a huge difference to those coming from near and far to attend. So I began with this question – what do we most want participants to both remember and use?

As I created every aspect of the event from topics, speakers, exhibitors, marketing, layout, volunteers, activities, and revenue generation- I became laser-focused on the results I wanted participants to gain. Not the traditional keynotes, panels and other sessions that leave people milling at the back of the room and speakers rarely connecting with what other speakers say.

My first shock was in learning how much energy was needed to counter and tune out those who take the usual conference conventions as sacred. How strong are the traditions of togetherness!

The Results 1st approach led to the following gains for the 1,400 Parkinson’s Expo participants:

76% learned about new medication and treatment options
90% learned about Parkinson’s specific resources to help them manage their disease
90% felt more empowered to move forward

Our Parkinson’s Expo continues to be the largest event of its kind in the country with over 1,400 attendees. People come and come back because they get value. As a result of the attendance numbers, the sponsors of the Expo also come back. The net funds from Expo sponsorships have allowed Neuro Challenge to expand its programs to serve more people in the Parkinson’s community.

Seth is right- results are easy. But only when we realize that while we define what we do, our clients define what they want to get. A simple premise that has turned my world upside down. I now start with results in order to end there.

innovation leadership Sparkplug

Vitality Rediscovered

We just sold a house. Many of you have the same experiences in moving that my wife Pam and I did. Much of the pain was about book decisions. Thousands of volumes one or both of us found indispensable, often surviving previous moves.

In conducting the necessary pruning, I had a chance to revisit many books read over the years. I am an inveterate underliner and turned pages until I saw something I once thought important. In this toil, I came to a 2004 book called Vitality…Igniting Your Organization’s Spirit. The authors, Chuck and Mary Mead Lofy, are well known for their many years of research on vitality in corporations. I came across two underlinings I had made.

The first followed the authors’ observation that rather than to dissect the inherent meaning of the term, it is best to focus on how vitality is seen and heard in an organization. The first underling I saw was the first entry in a section called “Markers of Vitality”: Spontaneous leadership. This occurs when people assert leadership regardless of their position in the organization. This one stuck with me for the connection between vitality and spontaneity. People are much more likely to pitch in and take leads when they can do so without formal designation in a plan or a structure. A culture of vitalness brings out widespread engagement borne in energy not requirements.

The second underling is very short: He left his spirit at home. This was the explanation for an executive that fizzled. He fell short not because he checked his knowledge or skills at the door. It was his spirit that was left out. The Lofy’s connect vitality with spirit and with energy more than with systems or processes. Before you can be powered by data you need to be powered by vitality.

Years ago, I wrote an article called “Character in Organizations.” My premise was that while many organizations have characteristics, few have character. I described how valuable it was to apply personal traits, values, dispositions, and other factors we use to form a clear view of a
person’s character to organizations. Vitality holds up well in that translation. You can see it in persons. You can see it in organizations. And it is at the core of success in both places.

Tags #leadership, #vitality

Community Building leadership Wednesday Whimsy

The Result View of Trust

My colleague Robyn Faucy-Washington just emailed me the new Give.org Donor Trust Report produced by the Better Business Bureau. Based on surveys, it looks at changes in trust factors that influence charitable gifts. The top-line finding: “The importance of financial ratios as a signal of trust has declined steadily, from 35 percent in December 2017 to 18.6 percent in August 2020. Meanwhile, third party evaluations (36 percent) and name recognition (34 percent) have become relatively more significant than accomplishments shared by the organization (30 percent) or financial ratios (19 percent.)” The report also noted a finding that younger generations attribute less importance to trust before giving and that overall, the importance placed on trust has dropped from 73 percent to 63.6 percent.

While these findings are interesting in their own right, the article renews my question: Just what is trust? I can for example, trust a group for money, time, or other form of relationship because:

–it spends all its money in legal ways.

–it offers the programs it says it does

–it is fully compliant with all local, state, and federal requirements

–it is led by people I know and admire

–it has a wonderful mission, vision, and values statement

–the community considers it a valuable resource

–it has won awards from groups in which I have confidence

What’s missing in this list? Accomplishment! In my view, the most important factor is a trust that the group will achieve strong results for those it helps. That trust is earned by behavior. I either get a report with clear evidence of high accomplishment or I do not.

As with most subjects, establishing trust becomes simpler, faster, and more accurate in a result frame. An example comes from my work at The Rensselaerville Institute using a self-help approach to community revitalization. We started with a tool that let the community—and us—assess level of capacity and readiness for the major work involved in this approach. In the Appalachian small village of Stump Creek, Pennsylvania, we met with the residents not long after a national foundation had been in town pitching a leadership development program. In that program, several Saturdays were devoted to “trust building” among residents and between the village and the town and county governments. The residents declined the program. We arrived and were asked if we had a similar approach. No, I said. We like to boil this down a simple question: Do we keep our promises to each other? If each group pledges to do something before we meet again and then does it, we will trust each other. If one of us says, “so sorry we did not get around to doing that” we will not.

These residents were mighty tired of drinking unsafe water from shallow wells and two persons promised they would spark a survey to see how many residents would commit to giving at least 50 hours of time and pay up to $20 per month for good water from a central supply. We promised we would talk to the Appalachian Regional Commission about possible grant support. We both kept our word. Not only did we have trust, but we also had emerging commitments to make the project happen. In a results frame, trust is about what you do more than what you think.

Tags community, communitybuilding, communityimpact, trust

innovation leadership

A Good Question

My colleague Les Loomis had a comment that I found so useful I post it here as a blog entry. Following a highly successful career as teacher, principal and superintendent, Les has helped over 60 New York State school districts to significantly increase student achievement. Thanks, Les for making a big difference for thousands of students. And for writing this blog response which you call A Good Question.

In Hal’s blog post, “Listen Twice as Much as You Speak”, he tells a story of tallying the responses in senior leadership team meetings. “I found …a ratio of about 100 statements — participants asserting things to others — for every question asked.”
Don’t you find that to be true? People are happy with their own words and comfortable in their old habits. Well, do it the same old way — get the same old results. Through my work in guiding students and schools toward greater achievement, I discovered the power of questions. Asking the right question outshone all my best tips.
In leading seminars for middle school students a single question could drive a 90 minute discussion toward lasting learning. Like this question on Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail: What justifies direct action in the face of an unjust law? The nature of the question caused the kids to take it to heart and get excited about finding their own answers.
Working with teachers, I asked them to design their own prototype project as an early model for far greater student gains. Their own ambitious goal and this question caused them to uncover new solutions that led to some amazing results: What can I do differently to lift my students’ learning?
I brought Hal’s results approach to teams of superintendents, principals, and teachers in high poverty school districts in a year-long process to reach aim high student achievement targets. The focus on a handful of simple questions generated the most significant progress. What are the results thus far? What’s working? What isn’t? Why? What few next actions will yield immediate results?
So what’s going on here? Good questions lead to Insight. Questions caused students and educators to pause, to listen, and to look. To see into the situation and to see a solution.
What’s your good question? In your work? In your life?

Tags AskQuestions, communication, education, leadership, LearningOrganization