Whether it is in life or leadership, for-profits or not-for-profits, having a clear view of what we are about and where we are going is invaluable.  One of the leading voices on organizational leadership of this generation, Patrick Lencioni, in his capstone and best-selling book, The Advantage, allocates the majority of his book to the topic of clarity.  His four disciplines include:

1. Build a Cohesive Team
2. Create Clarity
3. Over Communicate Clarity
4. Reinforce Clarity

In my work with strategic planning with organizations, I ask four questions:

1. Where do you want to go or become?
2. What do you value?
3. What do you want to accomplish?
4. How are you progressing?

My experience is that most organizations struggle with clarity on these important and strategic topics. For example, this summer I was working with a large non-profit organization. The first day I had lunch with the most senior leader who was not the CEO. I asked him about the most strategic priorities of the organization. He said that he really couldn’t identify what they were.  The next day, I had lunch with the CEO.  I asked him the same question.  He listed three or four things.  I asked him if he felt like his senior team was very clear on this.  He said that the clarity was very high.  You can see the problem.  Here are some topics related to clarity that may help your organization and mine.

Focus
A key component of clarity is developing focus. Focus is collaboratively answering and agreeing on the first three high-level questions that were mentioned above:

1. Where do you want to go or what do we want to become? (Vision)
2. What do you value? (Values)
3. What do you want to accomplish and/or change? (Strategic Objectives)

While this list is short and may seem simple, many organizations struggle with bringing this level of focus.  Here are three common problems:

1. The work is never done to clarify these questions.
2. A CEO, small leadership team, and/or board answer these questions, but buy-in across the organization is never achieved.
3. The clarity that is achieved is momentary and not sustained in the life of the organization.

I want to encourage every organization to give important attention to focus.  The dividends it pays are well-worth the effort.  One of the practices we have at Crown College is to take a one day every month, a strategy off-site day, to focus on our strategic themes and how we can see them lived out within the life of the organization.

Alignment
Once significant focus is achieved, alignment is much easier.  Alignment is about moving our people and efforts in the same direction and is intimately connected with clarity.  Lencioni writes, “Within the context of making an organization healthy, alignment is about creating so much clarity that there is as little room as possible for confusion, disorder, and infighting to set in. Of course, the responsibility for creating that clarity lies squarely with the leadership team.”  We can grow alignment by:

1. Making sure that our primary organizational attention is given to our primary vision, values, and strategic objectives
2. Hiring personnel to meet our most strategic needs
3. Evaluating staff effectiveness in light of our strategic priorities
4. Allocating resources in light of our strategic priorities
5. Giving significant board time and attention to our strategic priorities

Over-Communication
Lencioni writes “Assuming that there is agreement around the benefits of clarity and alignment, the next logical question would be, “How do we go about achieving it?”  Over-communicating.  He goes on to write:

Once a leadership team has become cohesive and worked to establish clarity and alignment around the answers to the six critical questions, then, and only then, can they effectively move on to the next step: communicating those answers. Or better yet, overcommunicating those answers—over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. That’s right. Seven times. I’ve heard claims that employees won’t believe what leaders are communicating to them until they’ve heard it seven times. Whether the real number is five, seven, or seventy-seven, the point is that people are skeptical about what they’re being told unless they hear it consistently over time.

One of my favorite authors, John Kotter, writes in his landmark Harvard Business Review article, Leading Change, “Error 4: Under-communicating the Vision by a Factor of Ten.” To move ahead on clarity and alignment, we must consistently over-communicate.  Here is a simple plan that I have used for years to illustrate the point. Choose five modalities of communication such as print, meetings, emails, videos, etc.  Then use each modalities 5x over a span of time.  If you use five modalities five times each, you will reach 50% of the people in an organization.  I know it may seem discouraging, but it emphasizes how much work needs to go into communication of our strategic future.

There is no silver bullet when it comes to clarity.  It is hard work.  However, in this day of the new normal, it is imperative that effective organizations find remarkable clarity which is possible through focus, alignment, and over-communication.

Lencioni, Patrick M. (2012-03-14). The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business (p. 141). John Wiley and Sons.

This year I have experienced a convergence around the topic of talent management for not-for-profit (NFP) organizations. The reasons for this convergence are several. First, the organization I work for is looking for a number of key leaders to fill open positions. Second, it appears as though conventional HR departments have struggled to stay up with the needs of strategic talent management. Lastly, there seems to be a gap in regards to talent management as leaders tend to neglect the topic and don’t feel skilled in this area. I am not saying that leaders don’t think it is important. The leading HR publication, SHRM, recently published survey results which stated that 88% of business leaders believe “that ‘securing the right people at the right place at the right time’ was critical to delivering their organization’s vision.” The same survey said that only about 1/3 of today’s companies have a talent management program. My guess is that even fewer NFP organizations have such a program. Here are some of the issues that must be addressed on this important topic.

The NFP Talent Crunch
As stated above, our organizations have a need for effective employees. In his Harvard Business Review blog posting entitled “Non-profits Need to Compete for Top Talent,” Gerald Chertavian sites a research study done by The Bridgespan Group on the upcoming shortage of NFP leadership. The study says that within the next decade, over 600,000 senior leaders will be needed. Note that this study excludes healthcare and higher education. Therefore, it appears that the need for more effective and strategic top talent is going to be greater while the supply is going to lag.

The HR Crunch
Some leaders ask why HR is not more of the solution on this topic of talent management. Craig Mundy in his HBR posting “Why HR Still Isn’t a Strategy Partner” suggests that there is enough blame to go around. Because of the high compliance demands today, many HR departments are more tactical than strategic. Another issue is that classic HR departments have not traditionally given as much attention to the relatively new field of talent management. This is even more the case for NFP organizations which tend to have less resources than large corporations.

Some Suggestions
If NFP organizations are going to raise the level of engagement in talent management, they will need to do some things differently. Here are a few suggestions:

Build Talent Management Capacity: If a small HR department can’t keep up with your talent management needs which is common, the senior leaders need to take responsibility. On the practical side, the senior team can set aside time to talk about these topics. I would suggest that you set aside two hours at least 3-6 times per year and focus exclusively on talent management. Your team can read books together, bring in an outside voice and/or consultant, and begin to talk through your talent strategy for this year and the coming years.

Identify and Address Talent Gaps: Since many NFP organizations put a high value on missional-alignment, key competencies sometimes come up short. There are several things you can do to address this gap. First, identify the most important competencies that your organizations now needs. Second, identify where there are the biggest gaps between who you need and who you have. Third, consider what you can do to add staff in these strategic areas and/or build the competencies of the people you now have.

Give More Attention to Your Searches: Many leaders suggest that NFP organizations fill positions too quickly. Here are some best practices to consider:

1. Develop a job description which highlights the responsibilities for the role. This can be shared publicly. Next develop a list of critical requirements which highlights the kind of person you need. This may include characteristics like the ability to work independently or collaboratively. It could also include being more process-oriented or results-oriented. This should just be held by the search committee since candidates will often tell you that they have all the requirements you need if they are made aware of them. Last, develop a list of key outcomes. This is very important as our organizations move away from a focus just on coming to work and move toward a results and outcomes-oriented environment. In other words, you want to identify what success needs to look like before you hire the person. Lastly, many NFP organizations fail to explain what will happen if outcomes or performance standards are not met.
2. Source much more broadly. It is common for organizations to do only modest sourcing for a position which can result in a very few number of candidates. Or in other cases, a leader goes directly to a known person as a candidate and bypasses the process. Ideally, you would like to have a list of 5-10 people that could do the job well. Then focus on a short-list and finalists. When only a few candidates are considered, you may miss some stronger candidates. This broader sourcing of candidates will take some work and may require the help of a search consultant.
3. Search is important work. Many searches are done in the spare time of busy leaders. As we reframe the importance of talent management, we need to allocate sufficent time to the search process. Remember that talent management, which includes recruiting, retaining, rewarding, and developing your most strategic employees, may require up to 20% of the leader’s time each week.
4. Feel free to say no. In some cases you may need to start the search over. If the candidates you chose are not strong, an unfortunate dismissal may be in your future. This result is hard on everyone and expensive for the organization..

Competitive Mission and Compensation
If your NFP organization is going to attract and retain top talent, you need to have a compelling mission and adequate compensation. Ask yourself and those on your team if your mission is compelling and if your employees have line of sight on how their work fits into the vision of the organization. Regarding compensation, you will want to benchmark your salaries to those in your locale and industry. Also, more and more NFP organizations are moving to a model where merit pay has a stronger presence in the compensation environment. This is one of the reasons why having outcomes-oriented roles is important because it is easier to tie to merit pay.

As you, your team, and your organization look to the future, talent management is going to grow in importance. Start now and begin to have more conversations about how you recruit, develop, retain, and reward your most strategic contributors. You will be glad you did.