Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 3 No 2

David Burkus: The nonprofit sector has an interesting dynamic in that you can define customers in two different ways. To some extent, you can do this in the for-profit sector in a publicly traded company. Customers are both the actual customers and potential shareholders. Whether it’s for profit, nonprofit, or public sector (like education), there is a growing realization that customer satisfaction is a result of employee satisfaction, particularly satisfaction in the area of the value zone.The value zone is any job or activity that interacts with the customers, mostly on the front line, but there are others as well. But we don’t act that way. When we draw an organizational chart, we draw it from the top down. But the number one criticism of a lot of nonprofits has to do with overhead or senior people getting paid too much. Those complaints resonate most in organizations where it really is apparent that there is a guiding elite class that is not necessarily taking care of the people who interact with the customers, whether that be the donor base or the people actually served. There is an idea that accountability, in order to best serve the needs of donors or the people that the nonprofit serves, should not be built from the bottom to the top - meaning the front line people are accountable to the senior leaders who are getting paid a lot or a little. Instead, every management role should be a support role for those people who are interacting and being the hands and feet of the organization. When that happens in organizations for which overhead is crazy, we don’t hear that complaint. Why? Because the people we are interacting with, the donors and customers, know that there is value created there. We get it. We would call that a much more humane organization. Especially in faith-based nonprofits, we use this term of hands and feet. There is an idea that the brain or the other functions of the body ought to be serving those hands and feet because the only way people know about us is through our hands and feet. Nonprofit Performance Magazine: That is a real reframing. Obviously, it’s a big challenge and change in the for-profit world, as well. It turns our attention to how we come into contact with people. It’s rarely the senior management. It’s very much the front line. David Burkus: In most nonprofits, the front line is actually

volunteers. If the volunteers, meaning the people not on salary, are the ones that are mostly interacting, what are we doing to create a good volunteer experience, in addition to a good donor experience and a good experience serving our constituents? A lot of the donor class, in addition to giving money, also volunteers.What are we doing to create a positive experience for them? Most of the nonprofits that I know think that turnover and volunteer burn-out is a reality that we need to face, and I think it’s because they haven’t actually looked at the fact that the volunteers are the value zone.They are the hands and feet. Nonprofit Performance Magazine: I was 18-19 years old when I worked on my first political campaign. One of the first things I learned in volunteer management was that titles are free. It stuck with me from that point on. Our intern is the Director of Brand Strategies, because he is doing stuff in and around that. It gives him a title that makes him feel important and valued. It allows him to go do the work. David Burkus: The first person you meet at Google is the receptionist, whose title is the Director of First Impressions. That is a realization of where the value zone is. The first person visitors meet is that person.Who that person is, and making sure that person is empowered to create a great first impression, is the key. Nonprofit Performance Magazine: One thing you discussed caused me concern. I bristled at it initially, but I think you are onto something here.What are the outcomes if we outlaw or restrict email within an Most people can’t envision a world without email, despite the fact that email is still in its infancy. Email was invented in the mid- ’90s, although a select few used in the late ‘80s.That’s less than 30 years ago. It’s hard to remember that. When email first came out, it was awesome because it was a cheap and asynchronous really cool shiny tool. Previously, the cheapest technology for getting an asynchronous message out was physical paper. Because email could bridge a gap so quickly, you could send it around the world in a few seconds, while a letter took several days. There was an expectation to not hear back immediately organization? David Burkus:

from a physical letter. Email has the benefit of a memo or a letter but, because it is so quick to send, it actually has the expectation of a phone call. That creates a lot of distress. Because it is cheap, we send a ton of it, and we expect a response immediately. We have never had a conversation about whether this is actually the best tool for all communication. I am only talking about outlawing internal email. You have to use whatever communication tool your customers, constituents, or donors prefer. My banker knows that I don’t like talking on the phone and prefer email, so she does it that way. Internally, the question is this: What is the best technology? There are now a lot of companies that are having that conversation. Most of them are putting limits on internal emails, and some are outlawing it entirely. It’s an outgrowth of a real conversation about the best communication tool. I am more in favor of companies taking deliberate steps to give their people their nights and weekends back by shutting down the email server or making it an unstated policy and cultural fact that we don’t send email on nights and weekends. But I am not opposed to the idea of banning it internally entirely. Companies that ban email entirely usually create some other system that is digital and text-based, but less disruptive or distracting, allowing people to keep that ease of focus, asynchronicity, and cheapness of communication, but on their terms. That’s really what I prefer: taking this communication tool and making it one that serves us on our terms. Very few people know that they can shape tools however they want, instead of how they were given to them. Most people don’t change preferences in Outlook; their inbox is still checking itself as often as the guy in IT decided it should check.The ringtone on most people’s phones is the ringtone that came with the phone.We default to defaults. Email is a great example of something that may not work for us. Outlaw it. Limit it. Restrict it to certain times of day. Whatever you want to do is fine as long as you are taking active steps to control the tool, instead of letting the tool control you. Nonprofit Performance Magazine: There are a couple of things you include that may seem counterintuitive. You talk about getting rid of vacation policies, paying people

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