Timeless wisdom from Deming

One of my all-time favorite management gurus is W. Edwards Deming. In my opinion, Deming along with Peter Drucker were the most important management minds of the 20th century. Here, on a cold, rain sunday night is a wonderful taste of his wisdom:
The prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born [...]

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The art of apologizing

I recently discovered the audio book, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. A long-standing academic tradition, the “last lecture” is premised on what a professor might say to a class as a final “words of wisdom.” Dr. Pausch, terminally ill from pancreatic cancer, actually delivered a last lecture at Carnegie Mellon on September 18, [...]

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Workaholics inebriate everyone in the office

There’s being committed to the job, and then there’s being a workaholic. It might sound like a polite euphemism for someone who puts maybe a little too much time into work or seems a little too dedicated.
But according to Bryan Robinson, a retired psychology professor, workaholism is an addiction, a serious one that harms not [...]

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Why people leave jobs?

Staff turnover for any organization has a tremendous cost. According to Leigh Branham in The 7 hidden reasons employees leave: How to recognize the subtle signs and act before it’s too late, the top seven reasons why people leave jobs are:

Reason #1: The job or workplace was not as expected.
Reason #2: The mismatch between job [...]

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The growing leadership challenge

As the nonprofit sector grows, it faces perhaps its greatest challenge in its long history of service to America – an acute leadership shortage. According to a study by the Bridgespan Group, nonprofit organizations will need 640,000 new senior leaders over the next 10 years. That’s 2.4 times today’s number. And the [...]

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Why don’t we talk about customer service?

Why is it that we never speak of customer service in our nonprofit work? Be honest, when was the last time you heard someone refer to increasing customer service, or customer satisfaction? I can’t remember one time.
What does this say about how we view our clients, particularly for organizations that [...]

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Working diversity

I ran across the following comment on diversity by Dr. Leonard Berry from Texas A&M University, and wanted to share it with you:
Strong values-driven leadership enables organizations to achieve what John Gardner calls wholeness incorporating diversity.
Speaking to a Stanford University graduating class, Gardner told them their goal was “not to achieve wholeness by suppressing [...]

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Tips and Techniques for dealing with angry employees

Anger is a force that can move an organization forward to improve, or, it can be a force that destroys the organization’s ability to fulfill its purpose on an everyday level. Managers play a critical role in determining which of these results will come about.
The way the manager deals with conflict and anger will [...]

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Preparing to let an employee go

Separating an employee from your organization can be extraordinarily stressful. If you are preparing to let an employee go, remember these four things:

Documentation: Be sure that you have a record of the worker’s performance, including any communication about missed benchmarks.
A Plan: Map out when and where it will happen, who will be there, and [...]

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Burnout, Low Pay May Drive Young Charity Workers Away

A new survey in the March 22nd issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that long hours and low pay are key reasons why young nonprofit professionals do not expect to stay in charity work. Based on a survey released at the national conference of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, other findings were just [...]

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