Podcast appearances and mentions of tommy thomas

[00:00:30] Tommy Thomas: We're continuing the conversation we began last week with Deneé' Barracato, the Deputy Director of Athletics for Operations and Capital Projects at Northwestern University. Deneé reflects on her transition from a professional basketball player to a senior leader in higher ed athletic administration. She also shares personal reflections on balancing her professional role with her responsibilities as a spouse and a mother. This is a must listen for anyone navigating the complexities of leadership. [00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: Let's move away from your basketball career and sooner or later you decide that was a chapter in your life that was closed and you moved into higher education administration. Take me back to your first management job when you first led a group of people. What do you remember about that? [00:01:27] Deneé Barracato: Wow. Okay. So, I remember having the opportunity to lead a group of Graduate Assistants. And when I first started at Adelphi University, my Athletic Director took a chance on me once I decided to move into administration and move away from professional basketball and I had the opportunity to work with these talented young adults who just wanted to continue their career and their education. And as there were three graduate assistants that I had an opportunity to work with, and then a host of different student workers and staff that will work our games. And that was at the division two level. And I remember just being so in awe of their work ethic, right? So, I was a Division 1 women's basketball player. There were some perks that came along with that, whether it was gear or whether it was a scholarship, whether it was charter bus traveling or flights or those sorts of things. Pregame meals, but starting out at the division two level, just seeing their love, pure love for the sport. [00:02:33] Deneé Barracato: The way that they fundraise for things that weren't just given to them. And then seeing them work on top of having to be a student athlete, I was just really put to shame. I remember, and then even the grad assistants that I had an opportunity to oversee, I had one traveling all the way from Brooklyn, New York to Long Island, and she would do that on a daily basis.  She would come in early, she would go to her classes, she would come into the office afterwards, she would work long hours, work our games ,organize and do all the things that I asked of her. And then she would get on the train later at night, go back to her home and then come back the next day and do it all over again. [00:03:15] Deneé Barracato: And for me, I was just like, oh, my goodness. I thought I had some work ethic. And then I had an opportunity to work with them and to lead them and to guide them. And I think we learned from each other. And I was younger then, I think I was about 24. And I was just like, holy smokes, I just missed out. I thought that I had a pretty good work ethic and no one really had to motivate me. I was motivated. But then you see this caliber of student and student athlete that really motivated me. Inspired me to just be better for them. Being a better leader, being a better administrator, trying to communicate with them effectively so that way we were efficient with our time, and they felt like they were getting something out of their experience. So, for me, that experience with them was probably more of an educational opportunity for me than anything else. And we still keep in touch to this day. I really appreciate how they helped me grow into a professional. [00:04:14] Tommy Thomas: In his book, It's How You Play the Game: The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith, David Chadwick, one of his ball players wrote “the concept of team may be Coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball, leadership, and society”.   When you think about that from a macro perspective, how does that resonate with you? [00:04:37] Deneé Barracato: Yeah, I spoke about it before. Team is critical to your success especially when you're playing in a team sport environment or when you're working in an office setting with a group of individuals that have a common goal. Whatever that goal is, working together collaboratively and understanding that goal and doing it intentionally. Understanding everyone's differences, inviting their gifts to the table and just embracing that with intentionality through relationships is so very critical. So, I couldn't agree with Dean Smith more. It's attributed to the success that he had at Chapel Hill over the years. And so, I would agree with him. The concept of team is so important and sometimes we have to remind ourselves as administrators that they're watching.  [00:05:24] Deneé Barracato: Individuals are watching that will then translate to what they do in a group setting on their team. And so, we have to be very cognizant of that on a daily basis that we're embodying the things that we teach them and the things that we reiterate and the things that really, hopefully they will take with them beyond just college athletics and beyond their team into society and into their community post, higher education. I think, certainly his comment was very impactful and important because without people around you, and sometimes we talk about that as a village, without a village around you helping you to be successful. It'll be really difficult. Rome wasn't built in a day. But you need a team to help build it over time. And so I think, certainly that's something that I think about with a team, anything's possible. You have to do it with intentionality and understanding that everyone comes with all different shapes and sizes, but different gifts as well that can help you be successful. [00:06:31] Tommy Thomas:   If I were to come to one of your team meetings next week, and maybe after a few minutes we convince you to leave the room, I asked them two questions. I asked them, what was the most rewarding thing about working with and for Deneé, what would they say? And if I ask them what was the most challenging thing about being on your team, what would they say? [00:06:54] Deneé Barracato: I'll start with the latter. The most challenging thing I think that they'll say is that I'm not around enough. That if I was around, if I was able to say hello every single day it would be more impactful, right? My leadership would be more impactful and, oftentimes I challenge myself daily to do that. I just find it really difficult to do my job at a high level with all the things that I'm responsible for while still finding my way through two campuses. Two different sides, a mile away, and going through each of the buildings. And so that's something that I know over the course of my time here and Northwestern and even some of my other stops along the way that I probably need to improve on. So that's the one thing I think that they'll say is we don't see her as much as we'd like but when she is around, I try to be encouraging. I try to thank them for their good work and all their efforts. And then I would say the most impactful thing would be, I'm hoping that they would say my energy. [00:08:01] Deneé Barracato: The support that I give them. I always try to find ways in which we can thank them for their hard work, for their time, their diligence or due diligence and everything that they do, their intentionality. Because currently in the unit that I oversee is operations, right? So, everything from events and facilities and equipment and recreation and murals. The way I describe it to them is that we're the engine in the car, and unless that engine starts or works, the car will just sit there looking pretty, but it won't move from zero to 50 or 200. And so, I encourage them in that way that the engine works really hard, but without the engine, the whole team likely won't be successful. So, I think that the thing that I try to remind them is that they're valued and that they're important. And I try to bring energy, I always talk about Let's Go Cats. We're doing this together. Thank you for your time. And I hope that goes a long way. But I certainly know as a leader, I have a lot of things to work on. [00:09:03] Deneé Barracato: And when I feel like I have it figured out, I might as well just retire. So, I'm not ready. I'm not close to retirement. So, I would say that I still have a lot to learn to get better at and more to give back to our team. But we also talk about teamwork and being great teammates and being communicative as well. So hopefully those are the things that they might say. +++++++++++ [00:09:22] Tommy Thomas: I remember from the conversation you had with Ty, y'all talked about the current building project is probably not a strong enough word to say what's going on at Northwestern right now, but take us into that and just the ambitious nature of such an endeavor.  Give us a little background of that. [00:09:40] Deneé Barracato: Yeah, I'll give credit to a lot of my colleagues. A lot of our leaders on campus and our board of trustee members, our president who really stood behind what our head football coach wanted to see in terms of the momentum of the season that we finished last year in Las Vegas, when we played in the Las Vegas Bowl against Utah, and we won.  It was a challenging year which started very tumultuously. And with our transition of Head Coaches and we went into the season after I think the year before we were either three and nine or one 11, I apologize. I can't remember, but it wasn't a successful season the year before. And we had high hopes for that upcoming season, but then we ran into this transition with our head coaches and it was a difficult time for our team. It was something that was well documented in the national realm. And so, what we wanted to do is we wanted to really galvanize our team and really get them to focus on why they came to Northwestern. Why that season was so important, not because they wanted to prove something to anyone else, but to themselves and what they were there to do and really embracing and coming together as a unit. And they did do that. They did that very well. Before I talked about being in awe of student athletes and our student athletes here in Northwestern are not behind. They are so very impressive and our coaching staff as well. So, our Head Coach really took that to heart and he really brought them through a very difficult season to a very successful outcome. We ended the year eight and five and we wanted to continue that momentum into this season finishing eight and five. And it would have been challenging to do that off campus, even though we had started to investigate different venues that we could potentially play in the Chicagoland areas, some on the outskirts, but nothing, as is the same as playing at home and in front of your students, fans, faculty, staff, those family members that want to come and support you. [00:11:50] Deneé Barracato: And it would have been really difficult if you took that show on the road every single week and to different venues. And for those of you that don't know, we were constructing a brand-new football stadium. And we're in a two-year period of construction. And so, for that reason, we were without a home. So, we had to figure out okay, whether or not we were going to take the show on the road or whether there was an opportunity for us to play at home. And so initially when the idea came to us from our former head coach and some of our board of trustee members. It was something that we had to look into because we, what we didn't want to do is we want us to support our team, but we also didn't want to impact some of the other Olympic sports that utilize the same footprint. [00:12:31] Deneé Barracato: And so, we wanted to ensure that was something that we could do. And through some investigation, intentionality, some collaboration and people that were pushing and all the right places, we ended up with this unbelievable lakeside venue that holds around 12,000 people. And we're slated to open this Saturday against Miami of Ohio at 2:30 PM on BTN. And so, we're just excited. It was something that came together in a matter of, wow, 70 plus days. We had a plan and then we pivoted and, now we're really excited that we're able to give our student athletes a home field advantage an opportunity to have momentum leading into this season, coming off of an incredible season last year, giving our students an opportunity to see them on campus and not have to travel far. And I would say the same thing with our faculty and staff and our coaches and the family members that support our student athletes as well, that want to come and see their sons, participate in the sport they've invested themselves into, it's certainly been an endeavor. We worked collaboratively in production, which is a company that helped put together this temporary facility and then also worked with Nations Group, who helped manage the project for us, as with something like this. [00:13:49] Deneé Barracato: There's so many different moving pieces, and we had a host of others on campus across campus, centrally and within our department that really took this seriously. And as a result, I think you'll see a beautiful lakeside facility on Saturday and then throughout the next four games after that. And then we'll culminate at Wrigley field for our last two games. Yeah, it was certainly an undertaking, but the reason is because we really wanted to give our football program an opportunity to be successful, not just last year, but leading into this year and then the following year, and we found a way to do that. As we've been talking about throughout this whole podcast, we did it with a team that brought so many different talents, so many different areas of expertise and we all worked together collaboratively to do this in a very great way. And so, I'm just proud of being one member of that team that really put it all together. [00:14:44] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your life did you begin to get comfortable in your leadership skin? [00:14:52] Deneé Barracato: Oh, I think that's an evolving thing for me. I always challenge myself to continue to be a better leader not just to be a manager, but someone that can invoke some inspiration, I think. I even work at it at home with my own children, inspiring them to be, the best that they can be at school with their extracurricular activities, whether it's an instrument or whether it's in sport or whether it's a sibling or mother to my children and I always think about well, how can I be a better mother? How could I be a better administrator? How could I be a better colleague? How could I be a better mentor? And so, I don't know that there's been one moment where I felt like I've, okay, I've done it. I think that for me it's been an area that I've been very conscious about wanting to be better for those around me. And one that I really asked the Lord for guidance and help on, right? Every day I say, I pray for wisdom and an opportunity to be better for those around me. And so, I don't know that I've gotten there yet. I aspire to be as good as some other leaders that we've seen, but I'm still a work in progress. [00:16:00] Deneé Barracato: So, we'll see when I'm ready to retire or what they say about me in the books at some point if I do make it there, but certainly a never evolving aspiration that I have with myself. [00:16:13] Tommy Thomas: When you came to Northwestern, you obviously had to evaluate the job or the situation they offered you.  At this point in your life, knowing yourself as well as you do now, what do you look for in a leadership opportunity? What makes a good fit for you? [00:16:31] Deneé Barracato: At this point in my life unfortunately, I cannot only think about myself. I often think about my children, what's a great fit for them right now. My children are 14, soon to be 11 and 9. And, they're growing, and they have their own friends now. They have their own comfort levels. So, when making a decision, I always keep them in mind, certainly my husband, we never make decisions unaligned. And we also, we always try to come together and talk about what's in the best interest of our family unit. And so there might be opportunities where I think might be a good fit for me based on my background or where I've been successful and what positions might be of comfort to me. But I always try to be intentional about making those decisions. If I did have an opportunity with my family in mind first and foremost, and then, I try not to make any decisions without praying about it and without asking for guidance and wisdom and direction and where the Lord will have me even if I think it's a perfect fit or my husband or my family thinks it's a perfect fit. It might not be. [00:17:40] Deneé Barracato: Over the last five years, I've loved my time at Northwestern and certainly we've gone through many challenges just like everyone else has across the country. And I've always found peace here to a certain extent where; okay, this is where I'm supposed to be for one reason or another. And, as sometimes what you believe is good for you may not be or what you think may not be good for you is where the Lord wants you. I always make any decision based on prayer first and guidance from the Lord, but also with my family in mind. [00:18:16] Tommy Thomas: Let's talk about authenticity for a minute. Oscar Wilde said, be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. St. Catherine of Siena put it, be who God meant for you to be and you'll set the world on fire. What lessons have you learned about authenticity over the years? [00:18:37] Deneé Barracato: It's important to be yourself while evolving and hopefully growing. In your own skin, being open to having a growth mindset, one that you're not just stubborn about just because of how you were raised or, what was instilled in you, I think sometimes as people that do have faith, we're short sighted and the fact that maybe not, and not everyone thinks the same way. And hopefully carrying yourself in a way where people see you as an advocate and as a light instead of someone that they're afraid to come to or someone that you might judge them or someone that may not understand is really important to me. And so just being authentically me, who I am, I'm a Hispanic woman from the city of New York then moved to the suburbs of New York that loves sports, loves basketball, but also loves being a mom. [00:19:38] Deneé Barracato: I think it's really important, but also being open to others that might not have walked that same journey or even those that might not know the Lord or might not have embraced that side of their spirituality and really helping them understand that my job here on earth is one to be a great person to them, one that's to love them and one that will be there to support them through their life and through their journey. And that's so very important to me because I think oftentimes, we may not be seen as advocates in that realm. And so, it's important to be an advocate for all the things that I described. Being a woman of color, being a woman of faith, all those different types of things, but also being an advocate to others that might not have walked that same path and maybe don't understand. So, my job is always to try and walk in the light, be a reflection of the Lord and let people know that I'm authentically me. I'm going to have my New York accent. I'm going to represent the Latino community and represent the Lord when I have the opportunity. But also embrace people that are different and let them know that I love them despite their differences, and I want them to love me the same way. [00:20:52] Deneé Barracato: And so that's my goal. And then that's what I really hold myself to that standard. ++++++++++++ [00:20:59] Tommy Thomas:   You've had to hire a lot of people in your life and probably you've had to fire one or two, maybe not too many, but when you go into the hiring mode, what are you looking for at the cabinet level? At your level, what are you looking for in a person? [00:21:15] Deneé Barracato: I'm looking for someone who has the ability to work within a team setting, someone that has great work ethic, someone that has potential, someone that's eager. A lot of times people talk about, oh this person doesn't have experience. This person doesn't have this. This person doesn't have all these credentials on their resume. And depending on the job, sometimes you do need that. But in other cases, I think it's important to give people an opportunity. I think those are the things that you as a leader or as an administrator can teach them on the job, but without great work ethic, without a great vigor for the job, for life, someone that's positive, someone that's willing to learn, someone that's excited about the job. Those things are really hard to invoke in someone. [00:22:02] Deneé Barracato: You really have to have that ambition, that work ethic. Those are some things that you can't teach. You can't teach drive. You can't teach optimism. You can't teach an interest to learn. And so those things for me are really important. When I interviewed someone, just someone that is truly interested in the job, truly interested in the organization that they're applying for, someone that's excited about the opportunity, someone that's grateful for the opportunity and someone that's willing to work really hard within the role that they're applying for. And that's one of the first things that I look for because I can't teach that. Excuse me. So just coming into a role once they have that, they've got me hooked. And now I can focus on your credentials, your educational background, your experiences, and all the things that I think that they would bring to the position that would make them successful. But unless they have those initial things, for me, it tends to be a little bit more difficult to get them beyond that point. [00:23:11] Tommy Thomas: So you mentioned earlier in our conversation, you use the phrase, take a chance and the like when you decided to move from the ranks of the professional athletics and administration somebody took a chance on you. And I certainly remember when I was much younger people took a chance on me. Have you had a situation where you took a chance on somebody and it didn't work out? And if so, how did y'all reconcile that? [00:23:42] Deneé Barracato: I would say, yes, that has happened. I think the way that I approached it was with patience, giving them an opportunity to learn from the things that I would bring to their attention. An opportunity to reflect on some of the things that I may have wanted them to improve on. And not just looking at one isolated incident, but also helping them through that process and at a certain point if they're not willing to make those corrections or improve the things that we've set out for them. And that could even be a performance plan or anything that I would want them to do in order to be successful would be really difficult for us to move forward because like I mentioned before, unless you're curious, unless you're motivated, unless you're willing to learn and grow in whatever position you're in, it's really going to be hard for you to advance and specifically with individuals that you take the time to help grow and to help motivate to the next phase of their life or their career. [00:25:06] Deneé Barracato: If they're unwilling to make those adjustments, then, at that point, it becomes very difficult. So for me, I tend to just give a little bit more, because I often believe that everyone deserves, not just one chance, but, several opportunities to grow from their experiences and make some self-corrections. But at some point, there have been instances where, unfortunately I haven't been able to maintain them within the environment that I am in because at that point, it becomes an opportunity for that to then rub off on some of the other staff members and culture is really important. And without bringing on a detriment to the team, sometimes you just then need to step away. And I would say I even saw that in my own career now, my own life as a senior in college, when I had to take a step away from the team, because at that point I didn't believe that I was productive for them. I didn't believe that I was going to be the best version of myself in order for the team to be successful. So, I took a step back and sometimes that happens in life and whether it's professionally or personally. [00:26:21] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, let's bring this thing to a close. Maybe get a little introspective. How have you changed in the last five years? [00:26:30] Deneé Barracato: How have I changed? I've changed in the way that I've looked at life. I think COVID taught us a really big lesson in that, and that you can do more with different resources, with different ways of interacting with people, like we talked about at the beginning of this call. I don't know if this platform was available to us, that you and I, Tommy would even be speaking. And so, we learned a lot about how technology can impact relationships and can flourish them in a very different way than we even imagined. And so as a professional over the last five years, just being more innovative in the way that I've communicated. And the way that I've maintained relationships certainly as a mother, just be more in tune to my children as they grow the differences and, in their life, and their interests and being present, having to sit down and listen to my daughter be interested in things that I may not be interested in. [00:27:38] Deneé Barracato: And at that point in life, I have to say it's not about you, it's about her, it's about her life, it's about her, what's interesting to her and just being there as a listener and as someone that can guide her and give her advice or answer any questions that she might have. So, I would say as a mother growing into someone that can help her children navigate through life not through my lens, but through theirs. And I would also say, through this ever-changing landscape at Northwestern, we're hopefully going to be appointing a new Vice President - Director of Athletics soon here. And through some permanent positions and interim, it's going to be my seventh leader in a five-year period. And so, learning how to adjust and be flexible to new leadership, and then demonstrating that flexibility to the team and the staff, and keeping them abreast and communicating with them on new expectations or different expectations and how we can pivot and navigate has certainly helped me professionally. [00:28:35] Deneé Barracato: It's been challenging because every leader maybe has a different style, maybe has different expectations, but growing into that and having patience and knowing that my team is relying on me for that continuity in order for them to be successful. So, I would say patience, thoughtfulness, and in terms of how I interact with not only my daughter and my children, but also those around me. And then, utilizing technology to maintain relationships and build upon them and really grow in that space that five years ago wasn't very familiar to any of us, but also critical in this space that we're all navigating today. [00:29:30] Tommy Thomas: Final question. If you could tell a younger version of yourself something. What would you tell her? [00:29:40] Deneé Barracato: I would tell her continue to believe in yourself, continue to trust in the Lord, continue to be curious, continue to embrace life and be proud of your accomplishments, but know that you've done them and accomplished those things with so many people behind you and then, continue to embrace those individuals that have come into your life that have made you better.  Rely on them and appreciate them and love them the way the Lord loves you. And, as long as you have those things at the forefront of your mind, hopefully you will inherit what the Lord says that you will inherit at the end of the day. But knowing that you've done it with peace and you can go to sleep at night, knowing that you've tried your best and you've given your best at life and given back to those that are around you and hopefully that's enough and people appreciate that. [00:30:48] Deneé Barracato: But my goal in life is always to be a reflection of the Lord and try to do that to the best of my advantage. And if I can't, if I'm not doing it the right way, Lord, please convict me, please correct me. And I would say that to my younger self is, hey, you're not going to do this alone. Believe in yourself but know that you have a responsibility to be a reflection of the Lord. And that's a big thing to ask, but it's something that you can do. So that's what I think. That's what I would say. [00:31:19] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Deneé Barracato Bio Barracato named to NCAA Women's Basketball Committee Women of Live 2023 – Deneé Barracato   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com  Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Deneé on LinkedIn   Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:30] Deneé Barracato: Kelly Watts was a former assistant coach at several different institutions before she ended up at Hofstra. And she was a woman of color that was just so vibrant. She loved sports. She loved people. She loved the Lord. And every time I was around her, I just felt this spirit of joy. And she was just always so fun to be around, and she put things in perspective for me at a very impressionable age in my life as a young adult, where she always reminded me to keep the Lord first. Trials and tribulations are going to come, and adversity is going to come, but you need to stay focused and centered, and she really poured her optimism into me and I appreciated that. And then she was actually great at basketball. So, she taught me as a guard the skills that I needed to be successful on the next level. ++++++++++++ [00:01:19] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Deneé Barracato. She's the Deputy Director of Athletics for Operations and Capital Projects at Northwestern University. Her career path to Northwestern has taken her to leadership roles at York College, Queens College, and Adelphi University. She did a stint in Indianapolis with NCAA as the Associate Director of Division I Women's Basketball, and she even did a stint at Madison Square Garden's Company as Director of Strategy, where she worked with the Knicks, the Rangers, and the New York Liberty teams to further advance the marketing and business objective of the Madison Square Garden business partners. [00:02:00] Tommy Thomas: She took her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University, where she was a four-year basketball letter winner. As a student athlete at Hofstra, she led the nation in steals for women's Division I basketball and earned America East All Conference honors. Following graduation, she played professionally in the Women's Professional League in Puerto Rico for the Saints of St. Juan, as well as with the National Women's Basketball League as a member of the Atlanta Justice. In addition to her undergraduate degree from Hofstra, she earned a master's degree in exercise science and sports management from Adelphi. She's married to Michael, and they have three children, Grace, MJ, and Mia. [00:02:41] Tommy Thomas: Deneé, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:45] Deneé Barracato: Thank you for having me, Tommy. I'm humbled. It's a pleasure to be here with you all just to talk about sports and my journey thus far. [00:02:54] Tommy Thomas: Thank you. My guests sometimes want to know where I find all these people. Ty Brown has a podcast on leadership, and I listened to it. And I heard Deneé about maybe two months ago, three months ago. And I thought this is somebody I would love to have as a guest. You're so gracious to carve out some time for us in the midst of what I know is a busy prelude to your intercollegiate athletics this year. [00:03:19] Tommy Thomas: But before we dive too deep into sports or your current role, take me back to your childhood and tell me what was it like growing up?  [00:03:29] Deneé Barracato: Oh, wow.  Growing up, I had a very active childhood. I was a tomboy at heart. I loved activity. I loved sports. I wouldn't say competitively, but just out in the park, a city kid originally from the Bronx, and my parents are from the city as well. First generation here in the United States, although Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, but they were born there and moved here at a young age, and then raised us in New York city. And later we moved out to Hempstead, Long Island where I went undergrad near Hofstra. I was a very active kid, loved life, and loved sports. And when I was in middle school, I was introduced to women's basketball or just basketball in general, from an organized standpoint. And I remember I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with the idea of playing something that was pretty cool at the time. And then I realized that I was actually decent at it. [00:04:32] Deneé Barracato: And it was interesting because I have two sisters, two older sisters. I'm the youngest of three. And my father ended up coaching the middle school team, and we were all on it. And I remember my older sister, Damaris, she was actually pretty good. She played at a junior college. And then my older sister, she just wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't like the physical interaction. And as I mentioned, I embraced it. My father encouraged me to continue to play, and the rest is history. I then transitioned to a public school and started getting engaged in summer basketball, AAU later in my high school career and ended up at Hofstra university. [00:05:17] Deneé Barracato: So, I would say my family, certainly my parents both being educators, but both being Hispanics growing up in the city, tried to instill in us work ethic, education, and just avenues to further my educational career. And basketball was one of those endeavors that helped me do that. And so now in my career, I can say that I will be forever indebted to basketball, but also this industry for giving me so much. And so that's why I do what I do to give back to potential student athletes and young adults that one day want to take advantage of that opportunity to do something very similar to myself. Yeah, so that's my childhood in a nutshell but one that I'm very proud of. [00:06:01] Tommy Thomas: So, when you were in high school, what kind of career aspirations did a young 15-year-old have? [00:06:08] Deneé Barracato: I have to be honest with you. I was so enamored with the sport of basketball. I was so tunnel visioned. I was determined to play Division I Women's Basketball. I didn't even know what that meant at the time. I just wanted to play at the highest level, wherever it was. And I worked tirelessly to ensure that happened, whether that was working out two days on my own as a 15, 16-year-old doing whatever I had to do, because I really came on to the AAU summer league basketball scene pretty late. [00:06:39] Deneé Barracato: My parents really didn't know the first thing about college scholarships and what sports can actually bring to an aspiring, young individual like me wanting to play on the next level. I don't know that they fully understood that there could be possibilities to getting a full scholarship that would allow me to be educated at no cost. And so once my parents learned that, then we fast forward through everything. So, my main focus was maintaining my grades so that way I can then play Division I Women's Basketball.  And then from there, obviously, the sky's the limit with potentially playing overseas. [00:07:16] Deneé Barracato: At the time when I first started, I think it was my freshman year. I don't know that the WNBA was even a thing. I don't know that it became a thing until my senior year. Back when I was 15, 16, that was my focus and I'm a bit taken back because if that is my daughter's focus at 15, 16, then I think we're going to have a different conversation. But certainly, it was one that I was really enamored with. And I had to be honest with you, even my relationship with the Lord probably wasn't first and foremost, the way it probably should have been back then. And it's later in life that I realized that there's more to life than just basketball, sports, and my own personal ambitions. And we could talk about that a little bit more, but that was what was going through my mind back then. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:00] Tommy Thomas:   What is something that people are usually surprised to learn about you? [00:08:06] Deneé Barracato: Oh, that I actually have three children. Every time I share with them that I'm married with three children and I'm closer to 50 than I am to 40 they really get surprised. And I guess that's a compliment in a lot of ways, but one that hopefully I balance really well. At work, I work really hard and I'm hoping that my children will see that work ethic in me, but at the same time sometimes that comes back to impact the amount of time that I do spend at home. [00:08:33] Deneé Barracato: Because they see me so often, whether it's at work or at conferences which is where you heard Ty Brown's podcast, because I was at the NACDA conference and convention. Sometimes they don't realize that I actually have a family at home that's waiting for me, that depends on me. Obviously along with my husband, but yeah, I think that's something that they're surprised about. And even then, I even played professionally at the next level beyond just Hofstra University. And that was a wonderful experience too. And I think the last thing that might surprise them that I probably don't talk about as often as I should is my father is a pastor. And so, I was raised in the Word and although I didn't always walk in faith, it was instilled in me and that verse that talks about raising your children in the ways of the Lord and they shall not depart and those teachings. I think my life is evidence of that. And I'm hoping that I can certainly do the same with my children. [00:09:25] Tommy Thomas: Part of this sub theme I've got going here is the coaches in my life. And I've interviewed six or seven people like you who played intercollegiate sports. And we talked about things they learn from sports and things they learn from the coaches in their lives. So, thinking back, which coach do you think got the most out of you? [00:09:46] Deneé Barracato: Yeah, I've often talked about her. Her name is Kelly Watts, and she was a former assistant coach at several different institutions, Temple, I think she was at Rutgers for a little bit before she ended up at Hofstra. And she was just a woman of color that was just so vibrant. She loves sports. She loved people. She loved the Lord. And every time I was around her, I just felt this spirit of joy. And she was just always so fun to be around, and she put things in perspective for me at a very impressionable age in my life as a young adult, where she always reminded me to keep the Lord first. Trials and tribulations are going to come, and adversity is going to come, but you need to stay focused and centered, and she really poured her optimism into me, and I appreciated that. And so, she was one. And then she was actually great at basketball. So, she taught me as a guard the skills that I needed to be successful on the next level. [00:10:44] Deneé Barracato: And we still stay in touch to this day. I've been around her parents, or her mom and her sister. And she's always someone that I admire and that I often seek advice from, and, again, she was probably the most impactful person that was from a women's basketball perspective, but also Jay Wright, who was the men's basketball coach. She's a hall of fame coach, many people remember him from his days at Villanova and now CBS, but he was actually the head men's basketball coach at Hofstra university, my entire four-year career there. And we've just stayed in touch since then. He's been a mentor as well. [00:11:21] Deneé Barracato: Someone that I can pick up the phone and call. And we talk about different things going on in the industry right now. And I often pick his brain, but also brag about him and, back when I was at Hofstra on my off days, when the men's basketball team was traveling and we were home, I would help babysit his children. And I knew Patty, his wife, and now his children are grown. They're adults and so very successful, but he's someone else that I admired just the way he carried himself, how he invoked a championship mindset with his players and how he carried himself was just top notch and bar. [00:11:56] Tommy Thomas: Tell me about the best athletic team you were ever on and what made it the best athletic team. [00:12:05] Deneé Barracato: That's a good question. I would say my experience with the National Women's Basketball League. I was drafted in the fifth round and that was a league that started when the ABL folded. And so, the WMU was there. The ABL had just folded. That would be the CBA to the NBA. And they started this league because there were certain WNBA players that maybe didn't want to go back overseas during their off season, but still wanted to maintain their conditioning and just play competitively. So, they started this league, and I got drafted in the fifth round to the Atlanta Justice team. And I moved over there to play for a season and I just met incredible athletes, incredible humans: friends that I have to this day, friends that helped me through my wedding and playing at that top level, playing with some of the best players in the country. And Rebecca Lobo, the Miller twins. And I think maybe Tina Thompson also played in that league. There were just so many that I admired as a basketball player leading up. And obviously now they're household names, when we talk about women's basketball. I really enjoyed my time playing at that level and playing here in the States, in Atlanta. And so, I would say that would be my most impactful team. [00:13:25] Tommy Thomas: So how did basketball change for you between high school, college and the pros? What were the transitions? [00:13:37] Deneé Barracato: I think for me, it was maturity. When I was younger, I was still tunnel visioned, very selfish and my thought process, having this ambition to play and do well for me. That I forgot the team component. I forgot the humanity component. I forgot, that, hey, I know as a woman of color, I have to fight to really get the positioning that I need, really prove myself beyond many other individuals that were in front of me. Through maturity and through grace and patience, learning how to be a great teammate was something that I saw grow in me, and I can say that now as an adult, as a mother raising my children from high school to then college and then collegiate or professional sports just understanding that being a great teammate should be your first focus. [00:14:31] Deneé Barracato: Because if you can support your teammate, if you can have a like mindset, if you can be supportive of your coaches if you can understand what it is to go through adversity with your team, but go through positive moments with your team, like winning and doing it together as a collective unit, you're going to go that much further than if you're doing it on your own. And, I think over the years, I learned that it is so critical in any environment, not only playing on a sports team, but also in the office environment or in society or in your home, right? Instilling those things into your family members and your teachers, and even as a spouse. Knowing that we have to be one unit, and we have to be a team. And sometimes that takes compromise and all those things. And so, over the years, I think that I learned that through tough experiences and teachable moments that helped me be a better person, teammate, and partner to all those that are in my life. [00:15:31] Tommy Thomas: You referenced the lady that was such a strong influence in your college career, at what point did you realize that she might be teaching you something other than basketball? [00:15:42] Deneé Barracato: Oh, that's a good question. She had such an infectious personality that it is a good question because you can see the light and the energy in her, but it wasn't until one day we were talking about her time in Long Island.  At some point she lived in Long Island and we were just talking and I think I may have shared with her that I had family out in some part of Suffolk County in Long Island and she mentioned to me that the church she was going to was Upper Room and she really loved that part of Long Island and that kind of led me into a different conversation with her about that part of her life. [00:16:19] Deneé Barracato: And then seeing how she was able to marry the two. Her love for basketball and her love for the Lord. And there was nothing to be ashamed about, but there was a balance that you can have with both and do it so very well. And to see her do it at such a high level really intrigued me and really brought me back to things that I was taught and instilled as a young little girl with my parents. I think it happened organically through just conversation as any coach and player should have that dialogue, not just transactional on the basketball court, but really developing that relationship off the court. And I think through that interaction, we just started talking about life and it just made it all the more special to me in terms of that relationship. [00:17:08] Tommy Thomas: No matter how hard and dedicated you are to something; failure is always an option.  So, what did you learn from team sports about failure that you brought into your career? [00:17:20] Deneé Barracato: Oh, wow. I learned to again, be patient and know that growth is critical in life. Some of the student athletes that I speak to now are just curious or, if I have a moment to spend with them, they learn that as a senior, I actually ended up waiting for four games because I was going through, now we talk about mental health and that being such a critical component to student athletes. [00:17:48] Deneé Barracato: And back then we didn't know what that was. We were thinking maybe that was depression or whatever the case may be. But my senior year, coming off of a very successful junior year, I ended up getting injured in my junior year and ended up having surgery that delayed my recovery leading into my senior year, which was for me supposed to be the pinnacle because that's when the WNBA was coming out and, to be quite honest with you, was I good enough to be in the WNBA? I don't know, it's still a college girl's dream to play on the next level. And some nuances happened within that year because of my surgery, and I didn't end up starting and that kind of impacted my psyche going into that season. And I just, for whatever reason, just didn't recover. [00:18:32] Deneé Barracato: And I couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't starting, and I wasn't going to be, in my mind, as impactful. And I couldn't just sit back and say, you know what, some of my other teammates were sitting behind me for three years when I was starting. And now it's my opportunity to sit behind them and cheer them on and encourage them and give them an opportunity to play. And so throughout that time just learning how to overcome adversity, and I mentioned before, just maturing through that process, being a great teammate, thinking of others before thinking of myself and understanding that you can still be successful. Perhaps not in the way that you envisioned, but you can still find a way back while still being supportive of teammates, while still being supportive of those around you, and improving yourself and getting back to what you believe you can actually accomplish. [00:19:28] Deneé Barracato: And so, for me, that maturity in that moment of time led me to then come back to the team, apologize and really find my way back to a team and a sport that had given me so much. And was I really going to give all that up because of my own selfish thoughts? And maybe there was some validity at that time in my life, but I think now I would have approached it very differently and taken the time to take a step back and be reflective and be a great teammate and really find ways to fill that void with support, with encouragement, with cheering, and all the things that we teach our young adults now to do. And so I use that story to share with some of our student athletes when they're in a slump or when their things aren't going their way, just to share with them that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but there's also a component of patience and of taking a step back and looking at the situation and seeing what part of that situation is in your control and how could make the best of a tough situation. ++++++++++++= [00:20:38] Tommy Thomas: So, what did you learn about trust and communication from team sports? [00:20:45] Deneé Barracato: Trust and communication in team sports is so critical. We talk about this kind of team environment, team impact, and nothing that happens with a group of people is successful unless you have great communication, unless you have a great relationship, unless there's authenticity, intentionality, and all that you put into a relationship. Just understanding the different dynamics of individuals that make up a team or a group is really important. Understanding that different people bring different attributes, bring different skills, bring different gifts that would help propel a team to success. And just knowing that it all starts with intentionality, communication, and embracing people's differences. [00:21:29] Deneé Barracato: And so those things are really critical to the team environment that I've again grown to understand over my period of time as a young adult, but even into the professional realm as an administrator is learning that people have so many different attributes. People have so many different leadership qualities, but it's embracing all those and then in that group setting, just encouraging people to talk about those different things through communication. And putting those things into action for success as a group of individuals may be different. So that way there's a common goal and then, that can hopefully blossom into something beautiful. And in our line of business, that is championships. Just embracing the group setting, knowing that people have different gifts and talents that they can bring to a group. And then, really emphasizing the communication and the embracing of those different skills for success. [00:22:28] Tommy Thomas: Things get tough in someone's career. You get hurt. You don't always win. What motivated you to keep pushing yourself even when things weren't as good as you might have wanted them to be? [00:22:40] Deneé Barracato: I never want to be a quitter, right? Though sometimes things didn't go your way, I was always taught to believe the Lord calls us to be our best selves. And he equips you with the things that you would need to overcome adversity. And I know I didn't always understand that. But I just have this innate thing in me where I always just want to work really hard. I always want to represent my family to the highest extent. I always saw my mother and father working really hard and they provided me with an example of work ethic and being good and great, despite their circumstances. And I always wanted to ensure that I was doing the same thing and that I was making them proud. I was really pushing myself to be the best version of myself, despite my circumstances. Now, did I always follow through on that? No, I think I'm human and I've grown through that. [00:23:37] Deneé Barracato: But I always wanted to ensure that I was making my family proud that I was really taking advantage of all the things that God gave me and provided me and blessed me with. And so, I never wanted to squander that, although there were many times as they mentioned, even my senior year, but I came back and I had this realization that no Deneé, you cannot quit. You have to move forward and overcome the adversity and really tune out the noise. And I would certainly say, my parents, all the things that they instilled in me as a young girl, and then just my personal endeavor to be my best self and the best version of myself was really important to me. [00:24:20] Tommy Thomas: So as a person of faith, how do you deal with competition in athletics? [00:24:26] Deneé Barracato: One, I don't think there's anything wrong with competition. You just can't take it to the next level, right? You have to be gracious. And I have to say I wasn't always gracious on the basketball court. I was a tenacious competitor and sometimes I would have to curtail my competitiveness so that way, people could see the light through me. And, as I mentioned before, I grew into that. And even now I play a mean game of monopoly. I am competitive with my kiddos and my kiddos are competitive with me. But it's all in good fun. I think just coming away with it, knowing that you can be competitive, you can have aspirations to win and there's nothing wrong with that. [00:25:11] Deneé Barracato: As the Lord calls us to be great and he expects that from us. And so just embracing that while also loving your neighbor, while also being gracious, while also having a good attitude and being a good sportsman and really saving some of the things that may not be appropriate in that moment. Allowing the Lord to watch that under the blood, Tommy, we just allow the Lord to take the wheel and go. But certainly, throughout my time in undergrad and just through my life just asking the Lord to guide me and direct me and give me grace when I'm not a reflection of Him, but also reminding myself that it's really important that when people see me, whether it's in a competitive environment or a non-competitive environment, that they see the Lord through me. [00:25:59] Sometimes I fall short of that, but I always ask the Lord for guidance and for favor. And he gives that to me often. And hopefully throughout my life and my career, people have seen that through me. And if they haven't, that means I have more work to do. +++++++++++ [00:26:14] Tommy Thomas: I interviewed Dr. Linda Livingstone, the President at Baylor, and she had played ball at Oklahoma State, and she said that the game of women's basketball has just changed so much since she was a student athlete. [00:26:32] Tommy Thomas: How have you seen it change at the Division I level? [00:26:36] Deneé Barracato: I would agree with her, and I have met her. She's phenomenal. We visited there a couple of years ago not once but twice and she was such a gracious host. I would say, yes, the game of women's basketball has grown to success. We saw that this past year with the women's final four and the viewership and broadcast ratings and all the personalities are certainly Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and all those that continue to play and will be excited about women's basketball on the collegiate level again, as we're excited about the WNBA happening right now. And I think that the skill level has certainly enhanced since I was playing. The things that these women are doing are incredible, logo threes and the passes and the work ethic and the fitness and the dedication that they put into it is just at a different level. And I think that's attributed to just administrators and the industry putting more into and supporting women's sports and women's athletics. [00:27:31] Deneé Barracato: And showing people that know that they're great too. And they deserve to have a platform so people can see how wonderful and how great they are. Certainly, a lot of the banter that you see, I think, I believe is synonymous with just sports in general. But it's how you carry yourself and, how you correct, having those teachable moments on the court, I think we've all had those moments where you're just like, man, I could have probably handled that better. And I think sometimes you may see that on the basketball court. [00:28:08] Deneé Barracato: But I would say that the level of talent has enhanced because the focus and the dedication, and the resources have really been poured into the game of women's basketball in a very unique way. And so we've seen that be evident and what has happened over the last five years. And I've seen it more intimately because I serve on the Division I National Women's Basketball Committee, and we started back in San Antonio during kind of COVID days. And now to see it progress the way it has over the last four years. Now I'm going into my fifth and final year on the committee and just seeing the explosion on TV, the interest from so many different viewers. And we're talking about the demographics of viewers are just from young children to older men and women that are just so interested in what's happening with women's basketball. It has just been incredible to see. ++++++++++ [00:29:00] Tommy Thomas: Next week we'll continue this conversation with Deneé Barracato. She shares her journey from professional basketball to higher education administration. She reflects on the importance of team dynamics and the need for authenticity and leadership. Deneé also discusses how she balances her leadership role with family life, emphasizing the importance of flexibility and patience and managing multiple responsibilities. Her insights offer valuable lessons on resilience, teamwork, and leading through change, making this episode a must listen for anyone in or aspiring to leadership roles.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Deneé Barracato Bio Barracato named to NCAA Women's Basketball Committee Women of Live 2023 – Deneé Barracato   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com  Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Deneé on LinkedIn     Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:00] Dianne Ogle: I love creativity. It's one of my favorite things. So that's why I like questions, because even if I think I know the answer, if I ask the question, it's just beautiful to hear what inspires somebody or what was bubbling in them or how they see it, quite frankly. It isn't the way I always see things or think it might play out.  So, you give people a door for their own strengths, their own creativity, to participate and join in. And most of the time it's so much better than when we could do it alone. [00:00:32] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the discussion we began last week with Dianne Ogle.  In this episode, Dianne shares her extensive leadership journey focusing on the importance of authenticity, community and resilience. She discusses the danger of pride and leadership and emphasizes the need for leaders to rely on their teams and build strong, supportive networks. Dianne also reflects on the power of prayer and how it has shaped her leadership approach, particularly in empowering women leaders. Her insights offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of leadership with integrity and faith. This episode is a rich resource for leaders at any stage of their career. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:25] Tommy Thomas: I'm sure you've observed this in both men and women, but give me your thoughts on the dangerous traits that can derail a leader's career. [00:01:35] Dianne Ogle: Pride, absolute pride. And thinking that you can do it alone. And you don't need anybody else, because what got you here won't get you there, as one of the books says that I use a lot. Because we need each other. We were built for community, and we need each other. And as soon as we think that we have arrived in that corner office, we don't grow. We don't desire. We don't let people in to speak truth to us and have iron sharpens. Iron is when we start digressing, and regressing, we've all seen it. We've all known people. They think they're all there. Even Christians. We're flesh, we're sinful, and we start moving backwards. So that's probably the greatest. [00:02:25] Tommy Thomas: I know, all this is broached in a blanket of confidentiality, and I won't ask you to go there, but does it take the women a while to get used to sharing everything and trusting that their cohorts, that's not what you call it, but their peer, not anymore. [00:02:43] Dianne Ogle: I think originally, initially the first group that was called into it, but they were in need of a group like this that I think they were willing. And when they saw that I was doing a confidentiality statement that they all signed and that it was going to be a safe place. Then they started testing it. Now our foundation is so strong that women will either understand what we've got and be ready to jump in. As soon as they come and join I take them through an onboarding program, and I also have them start meeting with the women one on one, but they immediately come to a meeting after they've joined, and they start seeing how honest, authentic, just real. And the prayer requests that we share, we've really grown in the power of prayer together. And that is authentic because they're sharing every aspect of their lives, not just their work. [00:03:42] Tommy Thomas: So how do they work together from the four pillars, you're bringing people from the nonprofit sector.  You've got executive women from Fortune 500 companies. [00:03:53] Dianne Ogle: Now Tommy, the cool thing is we call it repurpose. We don't call it retirement. And some of them, like we had one who was the chief diversity officer at Coca Cola. And she'd been with Coke for 20 years and in her career and near the end of her career, she started being tapped for a paid board of director role. So, she's now repurposed and now she's a board director and still highly engaged with us in linking arms. We have another one who repurposed and now she's helping one of our other members who is the president of the National Day of Prayer, helping her with grant writing and supporting ministry of the National Day of Prayer. [00:04:34] Dianne Ogle: It is beautiful. [00:04:36] Dianne Ogle: We believe we don't compete. We complete. And so there are times where some will work together or we will have an opportunity to like this next National Day of Prayer in May. Kathy Brent sells the President, and she's opened the invitation for all of us to come to the Capitol and to all the festivities to help pray over the nation and all the pillars that involve. [00:05:03] So yes, we are highly diverse, Tommy, both in skin color and political views and career pathing and titles and positions. The beauty is in the foundation we love Jesus. And yes, we've worked through the weathers. [00:05:21] Dianne Ogle: I would say our women are even diverse in age. We've got some in their late thirties to the mid to late sixties. And all my nonprofit or ministry women, that's what shocked me because initially when I saw that pillar of nonprofit, I'm thinking, oh, it'd be like an exec with the Red Cross. And I just assumed it would be those kinds of women coming towards us. And it has been. There have been high level executive women in ministry work. So that's been beautiful. Andrea, who you had on your show before, she was my first one in that category. And I went to her after four months with us. [00:06:01] Dianne Ogle: And I said, I consider her Sage. She is the most amazing woman. I said, Andrea, are we meeting your needs? That was just important for me. And she goes, she's so thoughtful in the way she answers. She goes I come from a big family. I have a big donor base. I've been well supported at Cru since I became a Christian in college. And she goes, but this is so beautiful for me to have a safe place with true peers in other sectors and see the commonality or the similar pain or listen to maybe a different perspective outside of ministry that I can glean from, or I could speak into. And I'm like, okay, Lord, here we go. That's it. [00:06:46] Tommy Thomas: That was going to be a question, and, yeah, I would probably have assumed that, but you say that, regardless of what sector you're in, there probably arises a pattern of issues that you're going to face regardless if you're a private sector or government service or public service, and so y'all are able to work with the whole person. [00:07:10] Dianne Ogle: Absolutely. In and out of season. We've lost a member to death, which was really hard on the group, and it was very sudden. We have walked through lots of personal pain together. And there are groups out there for just professionals, but we work on emotional, spiritual, financial, relational issues. Some of our women are single, some are divorced, some are married, some have children, some do not. And so, you can imagine we all step into this place, but to see the love and the respect and the camaraderie, it always brings tears to my eyes. Just to go, Lord, these are your girls. You've risen us up for such a time as this and we are better together and we need to encourage one another as long as it's called today like scripture says, because it's tough out there.  And we need each other. [00:08:10] Dianne Ogle: I tell my coaching clients. Part of my core purpose is to be the Hur, like in Exodus 17. I'm the Hur of Moses and we need people to come by our side to speak into, to give us rest, to help raise our hands. Because these battles that we're in spiritually, professionally, personally, they're weary.  It's tough. So, we all need each other. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:39] Tommy Thomas:  If you're writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what are some of the topics you would address?  [00:08:51] Dianne Ogle: This loneliness is a big one that I hear consistently.  Whether I'm talking to a brand new high level woman or talking to one of our Arete' women, even though they're in the group, they will remember how lonely it can be and misunderstood because our churches a lot of times don't understand us or get our giftedness. A lot of times the other peers, like if they're in childbearing age and they're going to the school, a lot of those mothers don't get them. So, it's hard for them to have community. And then when you're at that senior level, as a CEO, as a board director, just the level of confidentiality and all that you have to take in and feel responsible for is unbelievable pressure. [00:09:41] Dianne Ogle: And so, where do they have their safe place, their place, just to be them authentically, have a place, a table, they could just lay an issue out like an advisor we call, like our own personal advisory council. Here's my issue, help me with this. Or let me just speak it through so I can hear my own voice talking about it in a safe place where it's not gonna go to the media, it's not gonna go to my board directors. It's just something I need to wrestle through to make sure that I've got the wisdom, discernment, knowledge, and understanding for this role. Each and every day I've been called to it. [00:10:24] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned early on, you came out of an athletic family and have done the statistics and all that. So, you'll appreciate a couple of these athletic kind of questions. [00:10:33] Tommy Thomas: David Chadwick, a pastor in Charlotte has written a book on Dean Smith's life: It's How You Play the Game. The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith. [00:10:42] Tommy Thomas: And he says the concept of team may be Coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball leadership and society. Your thoughts on that. [00:10:53] Dianne Ogle: Amen, brother. Amen. Like I said earlier, we are not called alone, and we need our teams, both in our organizations and outside of that, because that's when …  I tell people I have one brain, like I just have one. And so I gather even my women say, okay, let's talk about our content. Let's talk about our annual retreat. And even though I might come to the table with my own ideas, I want to have an open heart and ask questions. I feel really strong about the power of questions to gain others' ideas and inspiration, and God uses us all so uniquely with the way he wired us with our personalities and our strengths and the way our stories have unfolded. [00:11:38] Dianne Ogle: We do a lot of assessments in Arete too, over the years, not all it wants to beat us up, but so that we can not only know ourselves better, but the people that we work with in our different teams. And we have deeper understanding and appreciation, and we know who to tap for what assignment. [00:11:56] Tommy Thomas: Here's a quote from Mother Teresa and I like to contextualize this. In the context of Arete', I'm not called to be successful, but to be faithful.  And so is there a tension there between the context in which the women you're working with that's their existence. [00:12:18] Dianne Ogle: And a lot of my women, as you can imagine, are high achievers. They're highly responsible. When you do these assessments on Strength Finders, they're big-time learners. They're always insatiable to continue to grow and learn. And there is this tension, from the world's expectations and definitions of success and what God sees as success. And sometimes that's not the same. And are you okay with that? In different seasons, sometimes you're more front facing and other times he might have you in a prayer closet. [00:12:51] Dianne Ogle: Or going through a tougher season to sharpen you and to get the dross off of us so that he can use us again. Yeah, that's just really important. [00:13:03] Tommy Thomas: Here's one from General George Patton. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. [00:13:13] Dianne Ogle: Yes, I love creativity.  It's one of my favorite things. So that's why I like questions, because even if I think I know the answer, if I ask the question, it's just beautiful to hear what inspires somebody or what was bubbling in them or how they see it, quite frankly. It isn't the way I always see things or think it might play out. So, you give people a door for their own strengths, their own creativity to participate and join in. And most of the time it's so much better than when we could do it alone or to your point, overreach and over lead and overmanage, then it's all about me, versus it's about us and how we're perfect, how we're navigating and pressing forward. [00:14:01] Tommy Thomas: Here's another one. The best bosses aren't usually those who boost the bottom line as much as it is those who make you a better person and better at your job. [00:14:13] Dianne Ogle: And that's called development, leadership development, and the organizations that get the value, and that's what my husband does. That's his sweet spot with large organizations. [00:14:26] Dianne Ogle: And the organizations who believe that, whether it's coaching like what I do, whether it's the big-time strategies of leadership development, if we miss or you start pulling those budget dollars back from really pouring into your people, it will negatively impact your bottom line when you're too focused on the money and not the people. [00:14:47] Dianne Ogle: And then you lose your legacy. When we're focused on the people and where they're going and have a true sense of wanting to see them succeed and learn and grow and step into their authentic, strong self and grow every stage and step of the way. That's part of our legacy, isn't it? [00:15:10] Tommy Thomas: We talked about creativity and innovation a few minutes ago. Here's another quote. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:15:21] Dianne Ogle: And then it gets dull and boring and antiquated. It's then we're no earthly good, and we serve a creative God Elohim who all we have to do is step outside and see the ocean, like where you live or the beautiful flowers that my husband's planted in the trees that I live around here in Georgia. And we see his beauty in and out of season. So, creativity and innovation is like water to the soul. It should be that fresh flowing spring for any individual and organization to continue to thrive and strive for each season.  [00:16:05] Tommy Thomas: Here's another one from Coach Smith. What do you do with the mistake? Recognize it, learn from it, admit it, forget it. [00:16:14] Dianne Ogle: Confess it.  Yeah. You got to confess it and go, Lord, help me. If I have a blind spot, am I not seeing this? Did I know it? Is there sin here? Do I need to apologize to somebody or the team or the organization? Learn from it. Have a humble heart. There's nothing more beautiful about a leader who has a cloak of humility that can admit and model when they've made a mistake. And then how are they learning from it? Doesn't mean we have to be perfect. And that's the air that so many leaders believe, is that, oh, I'm in this position, so, I've got to be perfect. No, we should all be learning. And part of what we learn is to model when we have failed or made a mistake and that it's not the end of the world. [00:17:06] Dianne Ogle: We'll pick ourselves back up. Hopefully, the consequences aren't too great, and we can keep navigating forward and we can shift and learn from it quite frankly, and model it to others to learn from. [00:17:19] Tommy Thomas: No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your academic credentials, 15 percent by your professional experience and 80 percent by your communication skills. [00:17:34] Dianne Ogle: Well, communication is critical, isn't it? Whether it's in writing, whether it's oral, whether it's your prayers to the Lord, having that grounded and rooted time where you have the vertical in line so that you can do the horizontal for all that he has called you to do. Not what your talents tend to want to take us up, take over. No, he gave us our threading and our talents and our strengths, but we have to align it to his pace, his cadence, his work and his will every step of the way. [00:18:12] Tommy Thomas: Peter Drucker, the most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said. [00:18:19] Dianne Ogle: And that's called discernment, leaning in. I think if leaders talk too much, they really miss out on pressing in and seeing and hearing using those languages in hearing beyond what is physically said or heard. And sometimes then a strong question can elevate and illuminate something brand new. Or a way to go in and comfort somebody or encourage them or help them out of an area where they might be stuck. +++++++++++++++ [00:18:56] Tommy Thomas: Let's go back to staff leadership for a minute before we bring this to a close. [00:18:59] Tommy Thomas: What would go into a decision you might make to give somebody a second chance who had of course, I guess the degree of egregiousness would factor into that, but we all would like to have a second chance. [00:19:11] Dianne Ogle: Absolutely. And God's a giver of second chances every day, right? None of us are perfect. We've all sinned and fallen short of his glory. So why wouldn't we model that as Christ followers and Christ leaders? If we're truly being cloaked with his spirit and his power through us, we should be modeling second chances. Now, does that mean we're fools? No, sometimes we have to do the hard thing and fire people. [00:19:38] Dianne Ogle: Nobody likes doing it that I've ever met, but sometimes it might be in the best interest of the institutional organization that you are entrusted with. Sometimes God's not done writing their story either. And it may be the best thing so that he can continue to do his work in and through them apart from the organization. But yes, he's always in the business of second chances. Thank you, Lord. [00:20:06] Tommy Thomas: If you were creating a dashboard to get at the health of a nonprofit organization, what would some of your dials measure? [00:20:15] Dianne Ogle: Just the health of your people and where are your priorities? What's that vision, mission, values that hopefully you've aligned with what the Lord wants you to do in that nonprofit and having the metrics. So many times, I find nonprofits not wanting to have measurements and metrics. I don't really understand that because it's just in the spirit of excellence. It's not to shame you or to say you're a failure. But if we don't know where we're going, how are we going to know we ever got there? And so just having those benchmarks on a dashboard and in a visual way, which they make so beautifully these days, it can use it to help us to renavigate, to encourage, to inspire, to help make sure maybe we need to hire somebody we don't have on our team that needs different skill sets to contribute to where we're going. [00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: If you were a judge on a non-profit version of Shark Tank where nonprofits were coming to you for early-stage investment, what questions would you need to have solid answers for before you would open your checkbook? [00:21:26] Dianne Ogle: I'd want to know their viewpoint and their philosophy on leadership right from the beginning. [00:21:33] Dianne Ogle: And you hear that on Shark Tank, it seems like they get invested if they believe that person has the passion and that they will lead well through every stage of those businesses. Same thing with non-profits. You can say you can have all these ideas, and a lot of people start opening for nonprofits because they are visionaries. [00:21:52] Dianne Ogle: They might have a vision. They may not be great executors. So, can I hear from that senior leader that they would have the wisdom to know that they need to put a team into place? To be able to get that momentum going. The name of our business is business momentum group but getting that ministry momentum going is to make sure that you've got the people, you've got the willingness to get the people and resources and talent in place. [00:22:18] Tommy Thomas: Let's bring this to a close. I have some lightning round questions. Some of them sometimes don't seem to lend themselves to lightning round answers , but I'll let you do that. What's one small act of kindness that you were once shown that you'll never forget? [00:22:37] Dianne Ogle: I'm a cook and I have a gift of hospitality, but when I was having the boys, people brought me a meal or hosted me in their home, which doesn't happen a lot these days. That's just very sweet to me because I'm usually the one going, oh, I'll bring it. Dianne, have you in her home?  And I love doing that, but it's really nice when it's done for you. [00:23:03] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anyone's ever given you? [00:23:09] Dianne Ogle: To stay authentic and to stay in the game so that God can use me all my days. [00:23:18] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back in life or go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would you tell her? [00:23:26] Dianne Ogle: Hold on loosely. It's going to be a ride through the ups and downs and that you will weather through it with God by your side. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. This great pain that you might think you're going through now is for greater good later. So stay encouraged, my daughter. [00:23:50] Tommy Thomas: What do you understand about your life today that you didn't understand a year ago? [00:23:56] Tommy Thomas: A year ago, or five years ago? [00:23:59] Dianne Ogle: That he continues to amaze me with what he raises me up to do. I had the joy of praying at the National Day of Prayer. They asked me to pray over the sphere of business. And I said, are you sure? Because I pray privately. So I had never been asked to pray publicly in that kind of context. And I knew how important our words are, talking about communication earlier, but if I'm going to speak, I'm like, Lord, then you need to write that prayer because it needs to not be Dianne at all. But just the surprise of what he taps us to do in different seasons is just beyond what we could ask or imagine. [00:24:44] Tommy Thomas: If you could get a do over in life, what would it be? [00:24:50] Dianne Ogle: I don't think anything because I think he uses it all. I just think, whether he's moved us, whether we've had hurts, he uses pain to make us greater. And makes us deeper in his rootedness of our lives. I used to have this, I had this vision one time and I had a friend say, if you had it to do over, would you just get rid of that pain? I'm like, no, because it's a gift no one can take from me. It's part of my threading and it makes me who I am today. If we let him use it. So there is such a gift of pain. [00:25:28] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Areté - Executive Women of Influence   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com  Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Dianne on LinkedIn   Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify  

[00:01:07] Dianne Ogle: I had my first child in Texas and I was working for a corporation running their marketing department. And I had to put my oldest son in with a lady who had a small group of children in her home. And every day I'd go get him. I would see him in a swing. And I told my husband, I cannot do this. I feel like I couldn't run this marketing department yet. I want to have more of an impact on my own son. And so, my boss said, great. She said go start your own business, figure out what that looks like. And I'll be your first client. And I thought, oh my goodness, how am I going to do this? [00:01:47] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Dianne Ogle. Dianne began her career in sales and marketing before making a name for herself as a leader who could grow organizations and identify trouble spots and bottlenecks that tended to enter an organization's growth and effectiveness. As a prominent figure in the Executive Women of Influence Network, Diana has dedicated her career to empowering women in leadership roles across various industry sectors. Her leadership experience spans leadership development, team dynamics, and organizational strategy, thus making her a sought-after advisor and coach. Her impact is widely recognized, and she continues to inspire and support women in their professional journeys, helping them to navigate the complexities of leadership and achieve sustained success. [00:02:38] Tommy Thomas: Dianne, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:41] Dianne Ogle: Thank you for having me, Tommy. I'm excited to be here with you. [00:02:45] Tommy Thomas: I've been looking forward to this. You come with good recommendations from one of my previous guests and one of my future guests. I'm looking forward to this. Take me back to your childhood. What was that like? What are some of your fondest memories? [00:02:59] Dianne Ogle: I grew up in the Midwest. I was born in Colorado but grew up in Indiana with a high work ethic, middle class. Early on, my parents took us to a church that didn't really preach the gospel as far as what the Bible taught. And one summer when I was 11, my mom took us to a local Baptist church that had VBS. That was the first time both my mom and I heard the gospel. And she became a Christian with the mother's group that they had. And then I did shortly thereafter and so it was a beautiful place to grow up and go to college. And we lived on the baseball field because I had a brother who played baseball up until minor leagues. And so, there were three of us. I was the oldest of three. So, it was just a great way to grow up in the Midwest. [00:03:57] Tommy Thomas: So, what was high school like? [00:03:57] Dianne Ogle: I had to change high schools in my junior year.  I went to one school in Indianapolis from kindergarten until my sophomore year. And then my parents went north of Indianapolis. And at the time it was a really rural area in Fishers, Indiana, which now it's like the largest high school. But back when I transferred, it was farm kids and I was the city girl moving out into the farm kids and I went kicking and screaming. That was not a good transition for me, but the Lord's hand was in it even then. I had to take the driver's ed course and I had the athletic director who was a tough football coach, and my dad was a barker, so he didn't intimidate me, but he quickly got me involved and got me to be a stat girl because my brothers were athletes. [00:04:58] Dianne Ogle: And he taught me to do the statistics for football, basketball, and track. And so, it was a great entry into a smaller school that was very established with kids who had been growing up together. And then I got a chance to be in musicals and got to play in Annie Get Your Gun. So, it was just a fun, great group.   [00:05:22] Tommy Thomas: What kind of career aspirations did a young 16-year-old Dianne have? [00:05:29] Dianne Ogle: I had a lot of parents thinking I should go to California to go into acting. I had a lot of common sense of knowing the value of a dollar. Because I was raised that if you wanted extra money, you had to work. So, I started working as a babysitter at age 11, got my first job at 15. I bought furniture, I bought my car. And so, I had a really deep, intrinsic work value at a very young age. And I didn't have a lot of role models of women. Unless you wanted to be a teacher or a nurse, there was not a lot of women, at least in my little world view at that time in the Midwest. [00:06:06] Dianne Ogle: Mom stayed at home with us. Now I knew she had worked at the Air Force Academy back when she was single in finance but other than that, I didn't have a lot of visual people ahead of me that I could see. Now my dad was in business. And so that's started me out in that track of well, maybe that's what I'll tip my toe into. [00:06:29] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:06:35] Dianne Ogle: They are probably surprised that I come from all brothers, that I was raised on a baseball field, that I love sports, and I can talk with the best of them about many sports. And now I have three boys, and I've got a grandson. And so, Boys-R-Us is what we call ourselves. And I now have two granddaughters. Yay, I've been redeemed. But it's interesting because now the Lord has had me working with mostly all women. So, it's interesting. I was raised with mostly all men and then God's used it to now have me work with women. So it's been a sweet time. ++++++++++++++++ [00:07:10] Tommy Thomas:   You graduated from college, and you got out in the workforce. Take me back to the first time you ever had a staff. And what do you remember about that element of basic leadership? [00:07:23] Dianne Ogle: I started my career in Indianapolis at a computer software company.  And then about a year and a half in, I was working in Pittsburgh running a sales territory and their president's club, only women. So, I learned really young about being the only woman in a whole salesforce and I didn't see any women ahead of me. And then I was tapped in Pittsburgh to come to central Florida and open an office for a temporary help company, which is in your industry. I didn't have any experience in it, but I thought I would just go down there. And that really was my first hand at leadership because before that, as you can imagine, I'm in charge of a sales territory and my clients and peers, but I wasn't having anybody that I was personally in charge of leading until I moved to Florida, had to launch this office. [00:08:19] Dianne Ogle: This was back in the early eighties and I had it doing over a million dollars in annual revenue within three years and they eventually had me take over Tampa and then do trap troubleshooting up here in Atlanta where I'm at. But yeah, that was the first time I got inherited by a staff, but then I had to build staff. I had to train them both inside sales and outside sales and didn't get a lot of training. It was just let's go do it. I really did it based on my own values on what I saw worked. I have a high work ethic and integrity is huge for me. And so being able to just navigate that was really important for me. [00:09:05] Tommy Thomas: If I could have shadowed you earlier at that time, as you were building that team, what would the typical weekday or month look like? Dianne Ogle: I started out with team meetings, daily team meetings, especially for my internal staff, of course that was back before computers. And so, everything was on these huge Rolodex clocks and these files that were flipping around and we had clients, we had built it to Martin Marietta and law firms and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. We were considered a little bit higher level administrative, so we didn't do lower and then we did some permanent placement. We would start off our day on just trying to get our grounding. Who was going to do what and what was coming up. Because every morning you had either calls coming in from clients or you had employees that either could or could not make their commitment, which was always a challenge. And then my sales staff, who are you going to visit? What appointments do you have? What do you need? How can I come alongside you? Do you want me to go with you? And so just that constant motivation and help to make sure that they were adhering to what we needed the office to do. [00:10:24] Tommy Thomas: If I could have been in one of your staff meetings and you took a break and left the room and I asked them, what's the toughest thing about working for Dianne? What do you think they would have said? [00:10:35] Dianne Ogle: Probably just adhering to their commitment to their numbers and even if the climate is tough, and it is hard with rejections, especially my sales team. But having to get back on the phone or having to try to get back in front of people, which is, like I said, we didn't have computers. So, all of it was either you had to just do cold calling. Knock on those old doors, which I got kicked out of some buildings early in my career, but you just had to have that tenacity and not every day is that easy. And so that's probably what they would say is that, boy, she's going to keep making us get up and go back out and try to call that person again and try to see them. Because we found that the more we could see people in person and have that face to face, the stronger that trust bridge and relationship could happen. [00:11:28] Dianne Ogle: And then we can not only help navigate any kind of problems or issues, but we have a chance to grow together. And so, we all knew, and that's what I kept telling all our team, both internal and external. We've got to be able to find ways to get in front of them to build those relationships. [00:11:46] Tommy Thomas: If I flip that, what would they say was the most rewarding part of being on your team? [00:11:51] Dianne Ogle: Probably their autonomy. I'm not a micromanager. And so, if they wanted to do their schedule a certain way, I wasn't going to micromanage how they did it. I always want to just come alongside to encourage and spur them on and help to motivate them for their highest and best. And quite frankly, it's tough every day, whether you're going through something personal, cause we're all whole people, right? [00:12:15] Dianne Ogle: And how we show up each day can change based on other areas of our life that could be impacting us. And so just helping to navigate that I care deeply about not only today working with my C level clients, but also back then. We are real people. We have real issues. And so how can we be there to support each other? [00:12:38] Tommy Thomas: You started out not having many mentors. When did mentors show up in your life? [00:12:45] Dianne Ogle: Once I asked. [00:12:47] Tommy Thomas: Okay. [00:12:48] Dianne Ogle:  I had my first child in Texas, and I was working for a corporation running the head of their marketing department. And I had to put my oldest son in with a lady who had a small group of children in her home. And every day I'd go get him, and I would see him in a swing. And I told my husband, I cannot do this. I cannot feel like I could run this marketing department yet. I want to have more of an impact on my own son. And so, my boss said, great. So that's when I made the transition from corporate into on my own. Cause she said just do your own job, go start your own business, figure out what that looks like. And I'll be your first client. And I thought, oh my goodness, how am I going to do this? And so, I ended up listening to a lady who was a speaker. She came from a similar but different background than me, but I could see, we saw things similar, and I thought, that's it. [00:13:48] Dianne Ogle: I'm going to go up afterwards and ask her to mentor me. And what I didn't know, she was highly sought after. She was an author and a public speaker. And she heard my why and my desperation. And she goes, of course, but you'll have to do homework. I'm like, fine, put me to work. And her name's Betty Price out of Dallas. And she was a gem. She shared; she opened her heart. She showed me how to write contracts. She showed me how to set up a business and really grow it. So that was absolutely amazing. [00:14:20] Tommy Thomas: Before we get a little broader, what are some times in your life that have really tested your metal and what did you learn? [00:14:36] Dianne Ogle: I got married at 30 and then we moved from Florida to Texas for my husband to go to seminary to get a master's in religious education and marriage and family counseling. And so, I was the breadwinner, which didn't bother me at all because I'd been independent and been earning my own income, but it bothered him more because he came from a hospitality background. And so that was an interesting season for us because I didn't fit the mold of most seminary wives or any that I ever saw. And we couldn't live on campus because my job location would bend too far for me to commute in that big metroplex. That was a hard season. Being a newlywed, having a heart for the Lord, but not finding community for anybody who could really. In fact, I got a lot of judgment and condemnation because of what I did. And I wasn't fitting that traditional role of a seminary wife. That was painful back then. [00:15:41] Tommy Thomas: Frederick Wilcox says progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base with your foot on first. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken and how did it turn out? [00:15:53] Dianne Ogle: Starting my own business. That was out of desperation. I had no vision. So that was also something I really wrestled with. Cause I'm like, I don't sell Tupperware or Avon. I don't know, what do you do? But it helped me. At least my old boss said do what you do now for me. And you'll figure it out. And sure enough, I started having small businesses tap me to help them. At least I initially started helping them on how they could grow their business through effective sales and marketing and with the teams that they had and how to develop those teams so that they could be a producing, performing, high performance, achieving team together. But that was a huge risk because we were still meeting my income. And so, you go from the luxury of having great benefits and a great package to, oh my goodness, I got to build this thing fast. [00:16:49] Tommy Thomas: It's been said, most of us learn most things from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:16:57] Dianne Ogle: Because sometimes the stakes are high. Like in my case, we needed my income, and we needed it, it wasn't a luxury. We didn't have a lot put aside or family that would just say, oh, let me write you a check or any kind of investments back in that day. And so, there was a lot on the line for us to succeed or for me to succeed for sure. And yet still support my husband and our joint goals moving forward. ++++++++++++++ [00:17:27] Tommy Thomas:   Let's move a little bit into your current organization. I'm fascinated and I'm going to probably mispronounce the title. So why don't you save me that embarrassment? And you tell us about your women's collaborative. [00:17:39] Dianne Ogle: It's called Areté Executive Women of Influence. Areté is a Greek word. It is unique. But when, and I can tell you the backstory, the name is a Greek word that means excellence and the Greek men and women attained it, especially in the face of adversity. And when I saw that definition, I'm like, that's it. That's the name. Because we all could either opt out or we press into the pain and stay in the game that God's called us to through that whole sphere of excellence, right? It's not perfectionism, but it's excellence. [00:18:19] Tommy Thomas: Where did the idea come from? Did you think about it on the tennis court one day or did somebody approach you? [00:18:26] Dianne Ogle: We serve a master weaver.  He weaves our story, weaves our expertise. So, one of the clients that I had when I first started my business, someone in New York City found me and said, hey, we want to start a chapter for women business owners that are at a higher level. We want to start a chapter there in Dallas and we want you to launch it, grow it, run it. And of course I had no background in that. I had other background, but I knew what it would take. I could see what it would take. Initially I said, no, because by then I think I had two little boys at home. I had other clients on my books, but they kept coming back around. And I thought, you know what? If I can rally women, because I too know the plight of the high-level woman and I can encourage her. Then I need to be open to it. And so, it was very quickly the Lord let me know that I should take that endeavor on. And so, I grew a very large chapter in Dallas, ended up taking over their Houston chapter. And then there were some ethical issues. I just couldn't protect my Dallas women anymore. [00:19:39] Dianne Ogle:   I finally let them know I need to step aside because I cannot continue to be this placeholder for some integrity issues that I just can't be a part of anymore. So, they said Dianne, start your own. I'm like, okay. That's not my vision but they were desperate. So, I started my own with that particular group. They all came with me, not that I was trying to do it out of ill means. It was their choice. And so, I launched it, figured out how to do a 501C(3) and did that until we moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. And I had my third boy at age 40, and I did that for just a small bit. And I finally handed the baton over to them and said, you take the organization. [00:20:22] Dianne Ogle: I'm going to get this back to you because I needed to be more present for my boys in that new season. So then fast forward, we moved to Orlando and oh, back up, one other caveat. They called me their little Christian leader. And so, I always felt handcuffed in my leadership with them. They knew I was a Christian. I'm not a Bible leader, but I'm authentically going to be who God created me to be. But they put me on notice that you better keep that in a box. And I thought, I told my husband, I said, that is too hard. That doesn't fit who I am. I'll never do that again. Love when you tell the Lord, never going to do that again. [00:21:06] Dianne Ogle: That was hard. So fast forward in 20, the crash happened in 08. My husband had been with Wyndham Worldwide at that point for a decade and his job got released, finally catching up to him about 2010. So, I started introducing him to some men that I didn't know. They didn't know my backstory. They didn't know me, but I would get us in front of some men. Cause I wanted to teach my husband, just have to tell your story and see what God's doing and see if there's any fits. Tommy, four men in a short amount of time would look across the table at me and I'm trying not to keep the conversation on me at all and said, Dianne, you need to start something for the high-level woman. By the fourth one, who was the president of the Central Florida Chamber, he just knew he couldn't meet the needs of his high-level women and that he would come in contact with another one. It was his partner. Another one. It was his wife who was an engineer. It was, they were all coming from different places and spaces, but they heard the plight of the high-level woman. [00:22:10] Dianne Ogle: So, I went back to my prayer closet, and I thought, Lord, I always say, here I am, use me, send me. I thought, woe to me if I start putting guardrails up going, been there, done that, this is too hard, I know what it would take. And he quickly showed me four columns, like those Grecian columns. Before he gave me the name of Areté, which is interesting how God works, but I'm a visual girl. And he showed me that they would come from profit, non-profit, academia, and public service sectors. Because I always knew we were missing a lot of women. Not every woman owns her own business. I didn't come from that space. I ended up there by default, but I came from corporate, and I thought we're missing women everywhere, especially women of faith and those who love Jesus. [00:22:55] Dianne Ogle: And I thought, what Lord, what would it look like if we could link arms with this higher level of women and create a container of confidentiality of trust of authenticity and vulnerability. What would that look like, Lord? And what could we do where we are better together? As one of our members says. And so that's when Areté was born. I called my CPA at the time and said, this has been a year since I've done this. I don't know Florida laws. And she said, Dianne, get it going. I'll be your first member. I was like, whoa, I hadn't even quite made the decision that I was going to do this. Then I'm like jumping in the fire ring again. So that's how that got launched. [00:23:39] Tommy Thomas: So, it's primarily a word-of-mouth growth pattern. [00:23:42] Dianne Ogle: Yes, Tommy, I would say absolutely. And our men still do this day. I had a pastor in Tennessee call me this week. He used to be my pastor at Knoxville. And he said, hey, I've met somebody that, there's not many of y'all out here, but she needs to talk to you. And because I also do executive coaching. So, she wasn't sure if she needed executive coaching or if she needed an Areté type of group. Because we have a chapter in central Florida, one in Atlanta, and then I have remote members now I've opened that up for the past two years. In Texas and Pennsylvania. And yeah, it's been quite an adventure for sure. Over the last 13 years now. [00:24:22] Tommy Thomas: Next week, we will continue this conversation with Dianne Ogle. In that episode, Dianne shares her insights on the importance of authenticity, community, and resilience in leadership. She delves into the importance of building a supportive community among women leaders and the role of prayer in strengthening leadership. She'll also share her observations on key areas that can derail leadership or enhance a leader's career. This episode offers profound insights for anyone looking to deepen their leadership impact.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Areté - Executive Women of Influence   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Dianne on LinkedIn   Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify    

[00:00:00] Samuel Chiang I would say to an upstart, boards are extremely demanding. And sometimes, those boards are like your father and mother, and they want to actually be helicoptering you all along. Be certain that you have people who are for you and not people who are wanting to have their agenda done through you. It's probably the number one thing, and you say, what does that mean to have people who are for you, people who are going to be praying with you through the thin and thick things, and they not only believe in the vision, but also, they will call you to accountability because they know it's good and proper for you. +++++++++++= [00:00:47] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the conversation we began last week with Samuel Chiang. In this episode, Samuel delves into the intersections of faith and technology. He discusses his journey from Taiwan to becoming a global leader in Bible translation and digital innovation. He shares insights on how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are transforming the nonprofit sector. He also reflects on the challenges and opportunities of leading in a complex and rapidly changing world. Samuel's thoughtful perspectives offer valuable lessons for leaders in any sector, particularly those navigating the intersection of faith in technology. This episode is a must listen for anyone interested in leadership, innovation and the impact of technology on global missions. Join me as we pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:46] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the President or the CEO could uniquely bear, what would be some of your topics or chapters you would discuss? [00:01:59] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, so this is a very interesting question. For me, at the stage of life I'm in now and looking back, I think I would be consistent to say that the formation of the soul in a leader and in discipling and mentoring is absolutely critical. [00:02:27] Samuel Chiang: And quite frankly, I'm thankful that I have been mentored by books in many different ways. Whether it's your classic Bobby Clinton, The Making of a Leader, or your Bill Hall, he wrote a trilogy of books, Disciple Making Pastors and things like that. Those sorts of things spoke into my life very deeply and it's been a part of my practice. My practice has been, how does a leader disciple? In a workplace and really, quite frankly, in a non for profit to a for profit, both our workplaces, the discipling in both mentoring must go on in both. But when you move into a C suite level, there is an extra dimension in terms of the formation of the soul formation, in the C suites. What is it God is up to, to have individuals in the C suites and how are they dealing with things on the inside? Those are very important topics. [00:03:32] Tommy Thomas: Any books you're reading on those topics that people might learn from. [00:03:38] Samuel Chiang: Oh, there have been many different books. Probably, Jim Wilder, is a wonderful, great read. Others would be thin little books, but profound, equally. And I read them over and over, Ari Nguyen's books. I would say they're very important as well for the soul. I would say also those books are not ones in which people want to learn how to, those ones are much more feeding into the being side. How am I, and what are my biggest shadows? That is a detriment for leading others. [00:04:01] Tommy Thomas: Maybe a lighter question.  If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank, and people were coming to you for early-stage investments, what questions have you got to have answers to before you open your checkbook? [00:04:43] Samuel Chiang: Oh, yeah. Okay. What is the problem that you're trying to solve? What is your purpose? And who is on your board? [00:04:51] Tommy Thomas:  Unpack the board piece for a minute. Boards are so critical. And what are you telling an upstart about their board? [00:05:04] Samuel Chiang: Yeah. I would say to an upstart, boards are extremely demanding. And sometimes, those boards are like your father and mother, and they want to be helicoptering you all along. Be certain that you have people who are for you and not people who are wanting to have their agenda done through you. It's probably the number one thing, and you say, what does that mean to have people who are for you, people who are going to be praying with you through the thin and thick things, and they not only believe in the vision, but also they will call you to accountability because they know it's good and proper for you. [00:05:52] Samuel Chiang: And people who are for you, probably, I always look for advisors or board members who are, if you will, not only right handed, but some of them would be left handed. We need both sides of people who are highly logical, but also highly creative. And so therefore, many people who are startups, have to pivot. They have to be agile. They must think laterally and people who are very logical might not be able to pivot as quickly, but people who are highly creative could maybe see the things that the entrepreneur startup sees. So, you need a combination of both. And I will highly always recommend both men and women.  The perspectives are real and they're meaningful. [00:06:46] Tommy Thomas: Do you think it's important to have someone on the board who's a logical, or a natural critic, you say you want people for you and I get that. And then I see the piece about, holding you accountable. If I remember right, I think Rich Stearns told me at World Vision at each Board Meeting, they appoint, and they got a name for this person, but this person is supposed to say, yeah, but he or she is supposed to listen and then come back with a counter argument. [00:07:17] Samuel Chiang: Yeah. Okay. The original question was about a startup. And then it applies whether you're going to have a counter argument. Would you have somebody who is going to be an appointed critic or appointed somebody who's going to say the bots. Absolutely. That would be healthy for the board. And I used the word health in a very, meaningful way. You don't need just help, but you need health in the board and the health of the board, should have somebody who's going to be an open critic, constructive, and positive. For the whole board to receive those thoughts. It's absolutely important. +++++++++++= [00:08:09] Tommy Thomas: Let's stick with our startup nonprofit. You're developing a dashboard to help the founder get at their health. What dials are you putting on the dashboard? [00:08:20] Samuel Chiang: Wow. I will say, on the dials, I would want to know, what are we measuring? And, depending on the type of nonprofits, I would say, yes, you want to measure your financial health, but you want to be able to measure your human health. You want to be able to measure your social capital health, depending on the type of not for profit. You may also want to measure your natural health. So, there's several different items to measure from your human capital, financial capital, social capital, natural capital, and then, on a dashboard, I also will want to know what is our pathway to solving the problem. [00:09:06] Samuel Chiang: For any social entrepreneur, you have to ask the question, for the Shark Tank question that you're asking. What was your purpose? What problems are you trying to solve? And who's on your board? You have to have a clear pathway to solve your problem. And then, probably, what does sustainability look like in multiple horizons? [00:09:32] Tommy Thomas:  I've read two or three articles in the past six months, about the productivity of people that would be my age and your age and older. And it seems like a lot of us are pretty productive. After working your way through a career, do you have any thoughts on employing people in their upper years and what you might expect there. [00:10:00] Samuel Chiang: For people who are in their upper years, I will want to say to them, you still have a lot to offer, and that offering is for people to be taken either one sip at a time, one bite at a time. You cannot give it to them all at once. And nobody wants it all at once. It may not be relevant all at once. And I would say to be very selective on the assignments that you're going to take. Be watching out for the talent that may be placed in front of you. And it would be wonderful if the relationship developed with those talents are such that they're coming for you. So, they want to learn from you. That's a whole lot easier than if you want others to learn about you. Ao those are some initial things I would say. [00:11:07] Tommy Thomas:   Let's go to succession planning. You've experienced that in different organizations. I'm sure on boards you've sat on, y'all have done it. What's the pros and cons of promoting from within to the CEO chair? [00:11:25] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, so it really depends on the season that the organization is in. Sometimes, it is better to bring somebody from the outside. I would say this in a healthy organization that's larger, if leaders develop, the way the management system works, I would say it would be, my preference would be to promote someone from within for a larger organization than to bring them out from the outside. Yeah, it does matter depending on the season the organization is in. [00:12:04] Tommy Thomas: How much of a role should the outgoing CEO play in hiring his or her successor? [00:12:11] Samuel Chiang: Again, it depends on the stage of the organization. I would say that the hiring process probably is best as a muted voice rather than an active voice, because it's really the board's responsibility. And, to have a CEO, to have an active voice, some dynamics just get weird. And then, if there's an active voice by the outgoing CEO, on the next hire, and the next hire did not go well, et cetera, too many dynamics. So better to be muted. [00:12:52] Tommy Thomas: What about the outgoing CEO maybe sticking around in an emeritus role as emeritus CEO, or even serving on the board? [00:13:03] Samuel Chiang: Yeah. I have met with a situation in one of the boards I currently sit on, the outgoing CEO or former leader is in the emeritus role.  As long as there is a real understanding of that emeritus role in terms of a job description. Pretty boxy. And if there's a continued passion for that person to be in the boxy emeritus role, I'm all for it. ++++++++++++++ [00:13:37] Tommy Thomas:  Let's go to a couple of quotes I wanted to get your response to. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:13:49] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I totally agree. Tommy Thomas: And y'all did a little bit of that, with Wycliffe and the Seed Company. [00:13:56] Samuel Chiang: Oh, we did. And I think they still do. [00:14:02] Tommy Thomas: No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your academic credentials, 15 percent by your professional experience, and 80 percent by your communication skills. [00:14:16] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think the communication skills are one of EQ, because I'm thinking in a smaller startup and the median size organization. Yes. Your communication skills are really you at the leader, but even at larger organizations, that communication skill could be outsourced by other people and, outsourced to someone who has your voice and writing things for you, but you yourself must have that ability to be relational with your colleagues and with people who are in your company work organization. [00:15:00] Tommy Thomas: Never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do. And they will surprise you with their ingenuity. General George Patton. [00:15:11] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah, and especially these days with all the generative AI and all that stuff. [00:15:20] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, you try to outsmart that. No, you're not going to, it's not going to happen. So, I agree with General George Patton. [00:15:28] Tommy Thomas: A lot of people have said they, I guess their persona of General Patton is that he would have never operated that way. I've not read enough about him to make a meaningful comment there. [00:15:39] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, it would. I'm still learning, so I'll have to find out. [00:15:47] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, let's go back to board for a minute. Here's a quote. The fewer board members, the better. If it's 18, I'm just not interested. Ernest Happel. [00:15:56] Samuel Chiang: I totally agree. It's very difficult. Yeah, Jesus had a reason for a dozen. [00:16:07] Tommy Thomas: Let's close this thing out with a couple of, maybe penetrating questions. If you had a do over in life to do, what would it be? [00:16:27] Samuel Chiang: Probably I would maybe want to stay at home a little bit more, travel a little bit less. In 1992 to 2000, 2001, it was 100, 120 days a year. 2002 to 2016 was about 150, 160 days a year and it went down a little bit and right now it's gone back up. I would say I would maybe want to travel a little bit less. Though I will say this. I have always asked our kids, would you like me to be gone during the week and come home on the weekends? We're taking longer trips and then staying home longer. They, without fail said, no, take short trips, always be home on the weekends. That's what we practiced. [00:17:22] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, as far as redo - No, I think other than that, I don't think there's too many things that I would want to redo. [00:17:30] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. If you could tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would it be? [00:17:40] Samuel Chiang: I probably would say something to the effect, don't just think about discipleship and mentorship of others. Think about your interior life earlier and how God is actively creating that infrastructure, the interior life. And that's probably something I would want a younger leader to hear, learn, and experience earlier. ++++++++++++++ [00:18:11] Tommy Thomas: Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Beyond Literate Western Models - Contextualizing Theological Education in Oral Contexts - Samuel Chiang Orality Breakouts - Using Heart Language to Transform Hearts - Samuel Chiang & Avery T. Willis   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify  

[00:00:15] Samuel Chiang: When I was probably 11, maybe 12 years old, I told my grandfather I wanted to be like him.   He was a lawyer, and he immigrated to Canada after us. And he was a specialist in the Canadian government when he arrived in Canada, because he knew Chinese law.  When I said to him, I want to be like you, he said to me, your English must be impeccable. And I said, okay. He said, but I wouldn't want you to practice as a defense lawyer. I said, why? He didn't answer the question right away. He said, you may want to be a corporate lawyer. That always stuck with me. And then he said, you don't want to be a defense lawyer because sometimes you could be defending somebody, and then in the midst of a trial, they confess to you everything. [00:01:16] Samuel Chiang: And you're stuck. He said, it's very painful to handle that type of thing in the midst of a trial. ++++++++++++++= [00:01:24] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Samuel Chiang. Samuel has a diverse and accomplished background that significantly influenced his leadership. He was born in Taiwan and later moved to Canada where he grew up and began his professional career. He graduated from the University of Toronto when he began his career at Ernst & Young in Canada. In addition to Ernst & Young, Samuel has served in senior leadership roles with The International Orality Network, Trans World Radio and Partners International. He also served as the president and CEO of The Seed Company, a Bible translation organization within the Wycliffe family. Under his leadership, the organization focused on making scriptures available in oral and written forms for unreached and Bibleless peoples. Along the way he gained a great appreciation for using technology in the workplace. And he pioneered the use of AI in both the private and non-profit sectors.  He and his wife Robbi make their home in the Dallas Metroplex. Let's pick up on the conversation with Samuel Chiang. [00:02:46] Tommy Thomas: What's your happiest memory of childhood? [00:02:51] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, it depends on which segment. I remember, in my early teens, playing my violin. Whether it was solo, whether it was ensemble, whether it was orchestral, that was very special, that I remembered. I remember playing tennis, teaming together in tennis. [00:03:11] Samuel Chiang: It was great. You might not know this about me, I'm a five-time immigrant, and so my immigrant experience, even when I was younger, first arrived from Taiwan to Canada, everything was new. That was a wonderful memory. [00:03:28] Tommy Thomas: At what age did y'all come to Canada? [00:03:31] Samuel Chiang:   I was a little bit over 10 years old. And, so everything was new, yeah, all the senses were new. I only had the alphabet and seven phrases of courteous language, thank you, excuse me, will you please, those types of languages.  And that's how I started in Canada. [00:03:54] Tommy Thomas:  Do you remember how long it took you to get reasonably fluent in English? [00:04:01] Samuel Chiang: Oh, my goodness, it was quite a long time. Let's just say, you're grade five, grade six, grade five, in Canada. Probably I did not become fluent until I was nearly 16. [00:04:15] Tommy Thomas: Wow. So, what's the greatest gift that your parents gave you? [00:04:24] Samuel Chiang: I think immigrating to Canada.  They're both Christians. They said to us, we don't want you to be conscripted into the military in Taiwan. And so, we want to give you and your brother a chance to experience things very differently. And I believe the gift of Canada in that immigration and the growth in that environment was the greatest gift my parents gave to us. [00:04:55] Tommy Thomas:   What was high school like in Canada? [00:05:00] Samuel Chiang: I went to a high school that was 66 percent Jewish. And I knew the sons and daughters of literally captains of industries. And I watched how they grew up in a very unique setting. Jewish people, by and large, love the arts, are great contributors to society as a whole, from history to research, etc. And when they love the arts, their sons and daughters are top in their forms in terms of music, et cetera. So it was, they pulled me along. I was a learner. I thought I was good at playing my violin, but these other students were even better than I am. And they pulled me along. [00:05:45] Tommy Thomas:  You decided to go to university.  Did you consider a lot of colleges and universities, or did you pick one and say, I'm going there? [00:05:55] Samuel Chiang: My goodness. in Canada, it's interesting in Canada, you get to pick three. I did. And then it was ultimately my parents saying to me, if you went to this university and lived at home, we'll pay for everything. I accepted that and actually stayed home and went to University of Toronto, and studied economics and finance and accounting and it was good. It was good to be in Toronto. [00:06:23] Tommy Thomas: How did you get into the econ and finance and accounting field?  Did you know somebody that had been a CPA or an economist? [00:06:32] Samuel Chiang: No, numbers were always of interest to me. And, let me rewind the conversation a little bit, for myself. When I was probably 11, maybe 12 years old, I told my grandfather I wanted to be like him. He was a lawyer, and he immigrated to Canada after us. And he was a specialist in the Canadian government, when he arrived in Canada, because he knew Chinese law and when I said to him, I want to be like you, he said to me, your English must be impeccable. And I said, okay, he said, but I wouldn't want you to practice as a defense lawyer. I said, why? He didn't answer the question right away. He said, you may want to be a corporate lawyer. That always stuck with me. And then he said, you don't want to be a defense lawyer because sometimes you could be defending somebody, and then in the midst of a trial, they confess to you everything. [00:07:42] Samuel Chiang: And you're stuck. He said, it's very painful to handle that type of thing in the midst of a trial. And I listened to that. And so, I thought, do I want to be a corporate lawyer? But reading was not my strong suit. Not yet at that time. And then I love numbers. And so, that's the way I went into accounting, finance and economics. [00:08:12] Tommy Thomas: So, what was your favorite part of college? [00:08:21] Samuel Chiang:   At University of Toronto, there were two things. One was in social sciences, sociology, and then the other one was actually computer science which surprised me because in high school, I never took computer science, but at University of Toronto, at that time still had to use those card decks where you punch holes and all that, and we used that to solve problems.  That was solving problems and I loved it. [00:08:50] Tommy Thomas:   You and I would be from that age. Yes. We took Fortran and COBOL, and we had those big, big boxes of cards. And, yes, I remember those days. What is something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:09:13] Samuel Chiang: They would say to me, even most recently, they would say, oh, you speak English so well. I don't know what to say about that. That's a surprising thing. Actually, the world over, I have had people saying that to me. [00:09:30] Tommy Thomas: Think back to your first management job when you actually had some people that you were responsible for.  What do you remember about that? [00:09:40] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I remember very specifically at Ernst & Young that even when I have people reporting to me, even though I was maybe really green in my experiences, people were just very respectful. They were very accepting and very professional. [00:09:58] Samuel Chiang: That just made me feel like they were helping me to do what I needed to do. And even though I might not even have much experience in doing any supervision, I always remember the way that people accepted me. They were very professional, very respectful. [00:10:21] Tommy Thomas: Each of us probably has times in our life where in the South, we would say our metal has been tested. I'm not sure what the Canadian equivalent with that, or the Chinese equivalent for that would be, but have you had times in your life when your metal was tested? And if so, how did you come out of it? [00:10:39] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, so very specifically, I remember in high school, in one of the violin pieces in the ensemble, I worked hard to get the lead part in that ensemble, very specifically for a competition. I didn't get it. Another student who was a great younger got it. And yeah, my heart was crushed. But that was one of those sorts of moments. I had to really console myself to say, okay, this is the Bach triple violin concerto. So, there are three leads. I got none of those, but I'm still the lead for the entire ensemble. And that's a role to play. So, I better play it well. And so that was the first time. The second time was, that I recall very specifically, was in an organization. On the one hand, being interviewed to be the CEO of the organization. On the other hand, I had a whole group of people complaining about me and they were doing an examination about my ministry practices and procedures and all that stuff. [00:12:02] Samuel Chiang: And, I remember during the interview that the board chair said, I just hope that examination piece will go away soon so that we can interview you properly. As it turns out, that examination piece did not go away anytime soon. It took nine months, but it was great. It was a wonderful experience with the Lord. I would never trade it for anything else. Because I was in that situation, they decided not to interview me further for the candidacy of CEO for that organization. That was crushing, but between the two, I would never trade the experience with the Lord going deep with him, and don't even want to come out of the water, if you will, we're out of the ocean, if you will, and just want to stay longer. So that's a heart matter that was very deep within me. [00:13:06] Tommy Thomas: You've built a lot of organizations over the years, been CEO, founded companies. Let's talk about hiring for a minute. When you're hiring at the cabinet level in general, what are you looking for? [00:13:18] Samuel Chiang: At the cabinet level, the C level, I often look for their EQ, the emotional quotient, that's pretty important to me, their character, their culture. And then their competency, character and culture. Those are non-negotiables competencies, you could throw that where you could delegate some of it away, but their emotional quotient, their culture, their character. [00:13:50] Tommy Thomas: What's your favorite or most effective interview question? [00:13:57] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I think we might even start around the same place. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. I would love to hear the friends and the friendships and the relationships that you have had. And then I also ask often, tell me a little bit about how you left home for your work, for your college, for your university. [00:14:23] Tommy Thomas: Wow. That is a penetrating question. Yeah. How you left home. Yeah, one of my recent podcast guests said that one of the things she wished that she learned earlier was how to terminate somebody with grace and dignity. What have you learned about terminating people when it's just not working out? [00:14:52] Samuel Chiang: My biggest piece about termination is, I have to be very clear. I have to tell myself not to pass on any problems further. Oftentimes you terminate because people handed it to you. And, with grace and all that be very clear, keep the dignity of the individual, offer ways to consider rescaling, or in some cases offer them the possibility for HR to help them to look for their next assignment. [00:15:28] Samuel Chiang: Those are some of the things that I have practiced and have practiced consistently. The clarity is very important for people. [00:15:43] Tommy Thomas:   You've been president of The Seed Company and other organizations but take us into that presidency. How did you get there? What was it like when you got there? [00:15:57] Samuel Chiang: Oh, wow. Yeah. I have served on the board of The Seed Company. And I learned a lot. And then I remember, it's a long story. I'll keep it short. I was invited to come off the board to apply and I did. And it was the summer of 2014. And during that time, I wasn't quite sure I was supposed to apply, even though I'd been invited. So, I prayed, and it was during the time that the summer of 2014 was, the Ebola crisis in West Africa. I was actually in West Africa at the time, and the Lord met me, twice. Nothing audible, but it was a sense of understanding from the Lord. And because of those two understandings, very deep, very unique moments. It was almost like he was having inner conversations with me. It was out of that experience that I put myself forward. [00:17:08] Samuel Chiang: And then I also asked the Lord, I said, I need to know that I have a specific assignment within The Seed Company or Bible translation as a whole. And he did, he put on my heart the need for the Old Testament very specifically. So, it was through that and ultimately, the visa process that came into this country, in the United States on a O-1 visa. And then, when I was pointed into the role and started, the board was ever so kind to provide an onboarding coach. That was marvelous in the sense that I lived overseas, working in Hong Kong for 25 years, coming into the United States. I discovered much later; I have multiple massive gaps. And the board was so kind to bring along onboarding coaching and subsequent coaches for me to bridge the gap and understand things. And so that was wonderful in the role. It was challenging. It was knee driven every day, asking God for things that I've never asked before, and then watching and understanding God's leading in that. +++++++++++++++++ [00:18:29] Tommy Thomas: Now, I probably don't know all the, know the whole, how to explain that, but my understanding was that The Seed Company was, at least at one level, a way of shortening the Bible translation process from the classical Wycliffe M.O. Is that correct? Is that more or less, right? Yes. So you, if you're operating there, I'm assuming you had some pushback from people that had been in the field translating the classical way for many years. How did y'all resolve that and realize that those two things could probably peacefully coexist? [00:19:07] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I think I'll answer that on multiple levels. One level is for the desire of people receiving the scripture sooner rather than later. Everyone, it's almost a justice issue, isn't it? Everybody has a right to the scripture, and will they receive it sooner rather than later? So that is the DNA within and then the indigenous model, which The Seed Company was founded upon, of the indigenous church doing the translation of the Word. That's a little bit different and we need both. [00:19:49] Samuel Chiang: We absolutely need both of the people who have been called. But the calling of the missionary and the calling of the indigenous translator, they're the same call to serve God, and in a very specific field, Bible translation. And so, we need both. Coexistence doesn't always come easy, even today. I'm still involved in Bible translation in other organizations. And even today, it's still not easy. Even with church-based translation, and even with artificial intelligence, that friction continues and the friction that continues, it's really a sense of working it out relationally, horizontally, and then vertically with God. What is God's desire in all of this? So, man's side of holding on to the tension is always very interesting. [00:20:57] Tommy Thomas: A pastor on the East Coast once told me, see if I remember this right, he said the most difficult thing in the world is living in the center of the tension of God's will. [00:21:07] Samuel Chiang: Oh, my goodness, it really is.  And then in Bible translation, it's not only living in the center of God's will, but the desire to have quality assurance, really super wonderful, clear, natural language of the translation, so that the community as a whole will say that is God's Word for me. [00:21:33] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken and how did you get the team to follow you? [00:21:41] Samuel Chiang:   Probably the most ambitious one that I've taken was when we did the First Light Project. First Light Project was a technology project. And then to have content providers that will link in with the studies of the Chinese word of all resident on a software program into China. Now, we have to remember, this is back in the mid 90s and late 90s. And everything back then, it was still slow. A cell phone was not really in existence. People remember satellite phones. And then people in China were still at that time, having some scriptures, scripture was at that time, sometimes carried into China. And oftentimes, the good work of your friend Ed Cannon, FEBC, and then, Trans World Radio were broadcasting into China and people were scribing word for word the precious word of God, and we thought in a multiple horizon scenario, they will have the software and technology available to them. [00:23:01] Samuel Chiang: Maybe what we could do is provide Bible resident on the software with content writers on it, and then give it to the church in China. That was avant garde. It was at the forefront of its time. And, trying to get people around the world on it, has been, that wasn't just in Hong Kong, but it would get people around the world on it was both exciting and exhausting. [00:23:27] Tommy Thomas: So, if I could have shadowed you for maybe a year or so during that time, what would I have observed? What would you be doing? Oh, wow. If you were shadowing me back in the 90s during that period of time, you would probably get something like this on a typical day. I would be in Hong Kong. Early in the morning, making calls to North America, trying to raise funds. I would be during the daytime working with technical teams and contacting teams first to make sure the accuracy of the Bible in digital format will be there. And then in the afternoon, I will be working with the technical teams in India because it was not a Chinese team that wrote it. It was actually the technical team in India that wrote the software for it, for the Chinese Bible. And so that would be a typical day of working, very exciting. [00:24:26] Tommy Thomas: I want to stick with the technology piece for a minute. I know our good friend, Bill Hendricks, told me that you'd been involved in a couple of AI projects. Can you take us into the world of AI and how it intersects with the nonprofit sector in general, and maybe talk about some pros and cons, some risks and rewards. [00:24:46] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, sure. A little bit about AI, artificial intelligence, is, for me, the ones I have been involved in, very specifically, it was 2016 on a Sunday morning. I read in the news that Google AI beat the South Korean in gold chess. And then the newspaper reported that in any given second, the Google AI could calculate a hundred million moves. That got my mind thinking very quickly about the number one issue at that time in Bible translation was in sign language, there was not a scripture, not a full text of scripture for sign language. And it got my mind thinking that people who are deaf in the deaf community when they sign, our body could only make so many gestures. To us, it might seem like millions, but it's a limited set. It's not unlimited. So, we thought maybe the computer vision could help solve that. And so that got us started on the artificial intelligence side of things and we created a not for profit and, and ultimately, we filed patents in that not for profit and then, a year and a half after it got started, not only the US Trademark and Patent office approved all those patents, the board of that not for profit asked us to spin it out into a for profit company and we did ultimately. [00:26:39] Samuel Chiang: So that's a little bit of background to that. Could I expand a little bit? [00:26:44] Tommy Thomas: Absolutely. You're talking to a novice here. I'm probably learning as much or more than anybody that's listening to this. [00:26:50] Samuel Chiang: When we spun it out. The company name is called Avodah, AVODAH.com or AVODAH.ai. [00:27:01] Samuel Chiang:  It is a God story that we actually got that name. We had prayed in wanting to have a single word that would represent, work, worship and service. And we knew the Hebrew name for it, that the word for it, Avodah or Avoda. But to grab that domain name was not the easiest. [00:27:25] Samuel Chiang: We're very thankful to God that it came. And as we spun it out, into the for profit, it's actually working on both the healthcare side as well as the language side, so as to serve, again, the language communities, who are without the word of God. And then also the healthcare side, for what we call ambient technology, ambient sensing. [00:27:50] Samuel Chiang: So, it stays in the background. And it listens to your case. Let's just say you were the doctor. I walked into your office. You've maybe had a nurse practitioner that will meet with me, take my case, and then you as a doctor would meet me and look at the summary of the nurse practitioner has written down. And the ambient AI technology sits in the background listening to the conversation once with the nurse practitioner and the second time again with the doctor. And then it's AI assisted, in helping, the doctor to either confirm or augment the decision and then on top of that, once the patient leaves it does automatic coding into the insurances, et cetera. [00:28:40] Samuel Chiang: So that will reduce the amount of time in a doctor's office, the front office, and then it increases the ability for doctors to serve more patients and, hopefully, save money and maybe increase the revenue. [00:28:56] Tommy Thomas: Wow. You hear people that are fear mongers about AI and what it might do to us and then you hear a story like that obviously made a huge difference. Where does the fear mongering play in? [00:29:14] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I think the fear mongering is very real and, unfortunately, people have misused AI in many different senses from voice for actors to pictures that portray individuals wrongly. [00:29:31] Samuel Chiang:: And then of course, people use it, in ways that influence and affect, ultimately to the elections. All those are in place. So it is a very large piece that is under consideration for many of the societies right around the world. And it is a concern. (00.20.56) Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Beyond Literate Western Models - Contextualizing Theological Education in Oral Contexts - Samuel Chiang Orality Breakouts - Using Heart Language to Transform Hearts - Samuel Chiang & Avery T. Willis   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify  

[00:00:00] Judy Douglass: A couple of years before we moved from California to Florida the Lord said to me, I'm sending you a son. And I said, no, thank you. And he said, I'm sending you a son. I said, okay, whatever you say, and time passed, and it didn't happen then and two years passed and he said, when you get to Florida, someone will say, can you take this boy? And I said, if that happens, then I guess this is from you, Lord. Tommy Thomas Today, we're continuing the conversation we began last week with Judy Douglas. In this episode, Judy delves into her personal and professional journey, highlighting the importance of resilience, humility, and faith. She shares stories from her time working with Bill Bright and the transformative impact of adopting a foster child. This episode is packed with valuable lessons for leaders and caregivers alike. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: I'm curious. and here again, you've probably already alluded to this, but times in your life that have really tested your metal and what did you learn from those? [00:01:19] Judy Douglass: I've mentioned that one was working with Bill Bright. And he just had strong different opinions than I did. And I needed to be responsive to him. He was the boss. So there were a couple of times when he wanted me to do something I really didn't want or think I could do because I didn't agree. [00:01:48] And I asked the Lord, I said, maybe I should just leave the staff now. And the Lord said, no. He said, you can do what Bill wants you to do. And you've already demonstrated that you can help him see another perspective. and I'll give you an example of that. So, at Explo 74 in Korea, we went to Yeouido Island. [00:02:19] Judy Douglass: And we had about 100,000 there, I think. I don't know. But the Korean people were reporting to the press that there were a million there every night. And I had another reporter from Christianity Today there also, and we said, there's no way there are many people here. And so, we actually walked the whole island. And then said, all right, with Americans, you could only get this many because they're not going to be crunched up tight, but the Koreans are smaller, and they are willing to be right next to each other. And so, we got the biggest number we could possibly find. And it was not a million when Bill started to talk about it. [00:03:12] Judy Douglass: And he said, there were a million people. And I said, Bill, there weren't a million people there. He said, that's what we need to say. I said, but it's not true. He said, that's what the Koreans are reporting, and we need to not offend them by not believing what they're saying. I said, okay, so here's how I can do that. I can say the official reported numbers were by the police. And so, then that was true. That was their official reported numbers. But it's still always every time I heard somebody say there were a million people there. No, there weren't. No, there weren't. But that was hard. And I had a few run-ins with Dr. Bright that made me want to leave the staff. God just says this is where I want you and the other was waiting on Steve. It was a long wait, we got married, I was 31, now that wouldn't seem so strange, but 50 years ago, it seemed strange. You don't wait that long to get married, but God said, no, you wait, you just wait, I'm going to do this. So those are two that were challenging for me. There have been some others, but those are probably the bigger ones.  [00:04:33] Tommy Thomas: You've observed a lot of leaders over the course of your life. What's the most dangerous behavior or trait that you've seen derail a leader's life? [00:04:49] Judy Douglass: Pride. They think they know, and they may know, more than others. But to think you're better or more, make decisions, but also pride leads to a sense that I can do what I want. I'm the boss, I'm in charge. And that's what leads to a lot of the failures that we've seen publicly lately is that. So more than anything, I think it's pride and that's why even as I talk about Bill Bright and Steve Douglass, both very capable men, great leaders, I watched them. [00:05:31] Judy Douglass: They were maybe two of the humblest people I've ever met. And so I just get concerned when people have to draw attention to themselves. For me, one of my key things as I work with people and have a team, I still have a team of 15 people. They do all the work. I just love on them. I'll tell you a story back in my early days of doing the Collegiate Challenge Magazine. No, the Worldwide Challenge. Bruce Cook, who was Steve's roommate at Harvard, said something to me about a project that we had done for the magazine. And he says, that was really good. And I said, it was good, wasn't it? I said, I didn't do that. So and so did it. And I named who it was. And I said, they did a great job. [00:06:25] Judy Douglass: And he said, one of the most important leadership principles that you can learn is to lift up the other people, to send the credit where it belongs and not take it yourself. I just am so grateful that God has helped me grow in that. So, I would recommend it to anyone. [00:06:51] Tommy Thomas:  It's been said that we learn most from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:07:00] Judy Douglass: Good question. I suppose I'm sure I can think of many, especially as a parent, but, one real failure was at two different times, but very similar. I had two women on my team that I was working a lot with and, I've already told you, I'm not a big rural follower and yet they were very structured and wanted to know exactly what was going to happen and who, and I just am a little looser and so, both of them ended up leaving our team. I didn't ask them to, I was sure we could come to some ability to work together, but they just felt they could not live on a team that was not more structured and that's who they were and everything. Now they're still friends to me that I could not help and see where I could work better. [00:08:07] Judy Douglass: To be able to come together better because they were gifted people, and I was sad to see them go. So that was major. Probably another area that tested my metal and where I've seen failure is this boy that God sent us, right before we moved. A couple of years before we moved from California to Florida so, the Lord said to me, I'm sending you a son. And I said, no, thank you. And he said, I'm sending you a son. I said, okay, whatever you say, and time passed, and it didn't happen then, and two years passed and he said, when you get to Florida, someone will say, can you take this boy? And I said, if that happens, then I guess this is from you, Lord. [00:09:03] Judy Douglass: Three weeks after we got here to Florida, this new friend said, do you know someone who could take an eight-year-old boy? And tears just came, and  I said, we might, I probably ought to talk to Steve about that. Anyway, this boy, his mother was an addict, and he didn't know his father and his grandparents were raising his older half-sister and he was living in neglected and dangerous places and lots of stuff and the county finally took him away. And the grandparents had him, but they said we can't do two of them. And so, they were looking to put him in foster care, hopefully adoption. It took a while, like a year to work out with the county and he came to live with us. [00:09:58] Judy Douglass: He was almost 10. He couldn't read or write. Basically all sorts of issues in his life. And God sent him to us. He was shocked. We go to bed at a certain time, dinner at a table that we ate. We had dinner, and it was just so many things that were different for him and for us. And so that was challenging. But as he got older, it was harder and harder because he just was so wounded by all the things that happened to him and didn't happen for him. And we just, we know we made mistakes. We didn't do it all right. It was hard, but in the end, it took about 16, 17 years, a long time. He's a good man now. [00:10:49] Judy Douglass: He's married, he has a stepdaughter, and then two little girls. He has a good job, drilling water wells out in the country, and they have a farm, and they raise animals, and all sorts of things, and he works. My husband, in his frustration, used to say he's the most creative work avoider I've ever seen. And in the later years, the last few years, we looked at him and said, he works harder than any person we've ever seen. And so, God redeemed what we've made a lot of mistakes. We didn't know what we were doing. And he had a lot of more pain. He made a lot of bad choices, but God did a miracle for him, for us, and this Prayer for Prodigals Ministry that grew out of it. [00:11:44] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what would some of your chapter titles be? [00:11:54] Judy Douglass: Oh, I don't like titles, so I'm not going to tell you that. Thinking up titles is one of the hardest things I do. I would say that it is important to be authentic, to really be the person that God has created you to be. And treat people the way they need to be treated. To believe they have value and that they can contribute well. To honor people for their work. To be kind and engage with them whenever you can. A lot of times before COVID and when Steve was still President, and I was at the office a lot. I used to just spend an afternoon going from desk to desk and talking with them and showing them that they were valued there and telling them how their contribution was really of great value and asking needs or prayer requests. And I wrote a blog post once called it's the people and I refrain from saying stupid. Because people think they're the ones that are important and people that God has sent to participate, to partner with you in the work he's given you. They're there. [00:13:28] Judy Douglass: You can't do it without them. So don't think you can. Recognize the contributions that they make both in your own mind, but to them and to others as well. [00:13:44] Tommy Thomas: I want to get you to respond to a couple of quotes. This is always a fun part of the podcast to me. I'll go with this first one from CS Lewis. Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain. It's his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. [00:14:09] Judy Douglass: That's fairly easy for me to answer because that's exactly what happened with our son. Without a doubt, the hardest, most painful part of this was all of those years trying to help him learn to be a person and a responsible one. But the pain that we experienced in that changed us a lot, helped us to learn to love and grace go further than strong words and anger or rejection in helping a person redeem. And out of that has grown the Prayer for Prodigals. The Prayer for Prodigals Prayer Place on Facebook.  A Facebook page of prayer for prodigals and every June 2nd a Prayer for Prodigals Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day and we invite people to give us first names of someone they want prayed for and unless they ask us later to take the name off, we don't. [00:15:22] Judy Douglass: So it accumulates because who doesn't want people to pray for your loved one? Whoever it is, most often children or grandchildren, but also your spouse, or your brother, or sister, and so this year on June 2nd I was at my Grandson's graduation so I didn't participate as much, but people gather in small groups, or we do a zoom call kind of thing. And we had the largest number that we know of praying, after I don't know how many years is up to, we have about 11,000 names that I'm halfway through praying, since I wasn't available on the day of prayer this year, I'm praying through it slowly myself and naming every person and bringing them before the Lord. [00:16:11] Judy Douglass: So great pain that we went through, and yet God has brought very fruitful help to so many people through this opportunity. [00:16:25] Tommy Thomas: Here's a new quote. I've not asked this to anyone yet. Beware of the shorn beard of reputation for it is hard to regrow. [00:16:41] Judy Douglass: That goes with pride. I think it's also evident in an awful lot of people being, yeah, their reputation has been harmed by things that have come out. And it is hard. Some try and it works, but most of the time it doesn't work if they try to come back. And so, I just go back to Jesus saying that he is humble and that we should be humble like he is and so that'll probably save us a lot of trouble later if we walk in humility and not in pride. [00:17:27] Tommy Thomas: The last one. I'm not called to be successful, but to be faithful. Mother Teresa. [00:17:39] Judy Douglass: Yeah, I think I would agree with that. It's hard to say much more to that. I think, how are we faithful? We're faithful to become the people that we're made to be. We're not accidents. And if you look at Ephesians 2:10, it says he made each of them. In the Psalm 139, he says he made each one of us. He was there forming us. So, it's no surprise that I'm not a rule follower. Maybe that wasn't one of his anyway. And it's no surprise that I don't have musical ability. But I can do words pretty well. And in Ephesians 2, he says, you are a work of art, a masterpiece designed for the good works that I've already prepared for you and so, God wants us to walk closely enough with him to discover those things, to be intentional, to discover them, and then to live them out. And do things I had to do, break an engagement, give up a dream, wait when I didn't want to wait, while God was doing work in me, and then he has to be faithful to what he's given us to do. [00:18:59] Judy Douglass: That doesn't mean it won't change some because it will. But faithfulness is to be obedient and surrender to the Lord in a way that I can do what he wants me to do. And the outcomes are up to him. I'm not doing them to be known. I'm not doing them to get accolades. I'm doing them because this is the work of God, the good works that God has prepared for me to do. And God loves faithful people. He loves others too. [00:19:38] Tommy Thomas: If you could give a younger version of yourself, a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:19:49] Judy Douglass: There's lots of little things, specifics, but I would say two words that have been key for me. One is to keep trusting God, even when hard things happen. Was I happy that my husband left two years ago? No. But I'm trusting that God knew what he was doing, that it was his time, and there were good reasons. God did tell me, but I therefore was trusting that he would stay with me, which he said the night Steve died. I said, now what am I supposed to do? And God said, I'll be with you. I said, I know that, but what am I supposed to do? And he says, no, every step of the way, I will be with you. And He has. And then the other is the practice of giving thanks in everything has probably transformed me more than almost anything. Learning in the good things I can easily say thank you for, but in the hard things, little hard things, big hard things, confusion, misunderstandings, great pain. Thank you, Lord. Because I trust you and that's made all the difference for me. [00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anybody ever gave you? [00:21:20] Judy Douglass: Just what I said, that was advice that I got from people, and learning to live it out. It's more important, and some people wouldn't agree, but a lot of people in leadership are trained to be leaders. I was never trained to be a leader. I just did what God wanted, and that's how He led me. So, for me, it has everything to do with my relationship with God. I let Him meet my needs and work in me. Give me comfort, give me courage, depending on what the need is. And yeah, the best advice I have is, oh, I'll tell you what the best advice is. This is one of Steve's famous ones. You want to know what God's plan for you is and what your job description is. Walk closely with God and do what He says. If you want to know God's plan for you, Steve would always say “Walk closely with God and do what He says”. [00:22:22] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO When You Love a Prodigal: 90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness by Judy Douglas Prayer for Prodigals Podcast Prayer for Prodigals Facebook Page Secrets of Success: God's Lifelines by Judy Douglas Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn To book Judy for a speaking engagement or to learn more about her incredible life and ministry go to www.JudyDouglass.com.  Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify  

[00:00:24] Judy Douglass: Two people who've had the most impact on me. One would be Bill Bright because when I did the magazine, all of a sudden I was reporting to him and some other people as well because he didn't have time to really supervise and so those were sometimes tense times. Bill and I have one huge difference. Bill loves superlatives. Everybody was the greatest or the most talented or the best and that's the way he talked. I'm a journalist. Don't even believe superlatives are acceptable words, because nobody is the best or the greatest or anything. And so Bill would write these flowery promoting things and I would get it and bring it back to what I thought was realism. And he would come back, and he'd say, no, you need to… And I would put a little bit more back, but not all of it, and we would go about five rounds before I didn't go back to him anymore. I just decided we'd gotten it as far as I was willing to go and as much as he really needed. But that was challenging because we didn't always agree on things and yet he was always kind and gracious to me and positive and encouraging. But more than anything, he was trusting God. ++++++++++++ [00:01:53] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Judy Douglass, a prominent figure within Cru, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ. Throughout her career, she has held various roles within Cru and has become well known for her leadership and speaking. She served in positions such as staff member, mentor, and advocate for women in leadership within the organization. In addition to her work with Cru, Judy is a prolific writer, addressing topics related to faith, leadership, and personal growth. These writings offer practical guidance, encouragement, and hope to individuals navigating various challenges in life, particularly in the context of family relationships and spiritual journeys. Judy, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:38] Judy Douglass: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm looking forward to it. [00:02:41] Tommy Thomas: I've been looking forward to this. I was thinking back, I guess the first time I met you was probably ‘73 or ‘74. That was, before the turn of the century, huh? [00:02:51] Judy Douglass: Definitely before the turn of the century. Yes, I was on staff then too. [00:02:57] Tommy Thomas: I want to learn a little bit about your childhood.  I know when I listen to a podcast and they start asking people those questions my ears perk up. So maybe take me back. What was it like growing up in your hometown and your family? [00:03:11] Judy Douglass: It was like it is for most people who grow up in Texas. [00:03:16] Tommy Thomas: Hot? [00:03:16] Judy Douglass: Opinionated. My family helped settle the State of Texas on both my mother's and my father's side. My mother's side, they came with Stephen F. Austin when he settled down near San Antonio. And on my father's side, it was after the war. And they moved to Dallas, which was just beginning to become a city. And so, I'm very Texan through and through, though I haven't lived there in a very long time, but my family is still there. [00:03:49] Judy Douglass:  I have three sisters, and we are still alive, and we get together every year or year and a half.   When my mother died, we all agreed if we weren't intentional, we wouldn't see each other. So, we became intentional, and we do that. My father was a doctor. My mother had been a nurse, basically. There was this expectation that you can do anything, you'll be supported and encouraged, and that was true. [00:04:23] Tommy Thomas: So, what did you want to be when you grew up coming out of a medical family? [00:04:33] Judy Douglass: I really don't like anything medical very much. From the time I was eight years old, I wanted to be a writer. I started a novel when I was eight and it was about my favorite topic, horses. And so, I loved horses, and I loved writing and they started to go together at a young age. I still have the manuscript of the chapter I wrote of my only novel ever. [00:04:59] Tommy Thomas:  What was high school like for you? Did that manifest itself in high school? Those two loves? [00:05:05] Judy Douglass:   They did. My high school was a very high-level school. And so, there were lots of smart kids. I didn't care for the social structure, but I loved the fact that I got a great education. Probably my biggest opportunity came when I studied journalism for a year, and the journalism teacher saw real hope in me, I think. And so, she encouraged me to work on the school paper, and she did things like she took an article I'd written for the paper and sent it into the Texas High School Press Association writing contest, and it was a feature, and I won for the whole state of Texas. [00:05:57] Judy Douglass: I didn't even know I was entered, but that was encouraging that I could do that, and that she thought I had enough potential that she would enter that for me without even telling me. So that was really a good thing. The horses, I had this, my father wasn't about to buy me a horse. He refused many times since I asked him many times, but he had a doctor, friend, with a horse and no one to ride it. And so they got together and I got a horse and I rode that horse for a number of years. At first, just fun with my friends, but then he said, she's a saddle horse. She's really a good horse. So, he wanted her trained. So, we went over to the training state of stable where I learned to write English and do some jumping and learned all the more proper things than just enjoying riding a horse. [00:06:53] Judy Douglass: And so that was maybe one of the happiest days of my life when my father says, I have a horse for you.  It was a great experience, and I loved it and it paid off later. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:05] Tommy Thomas: My next question was going to be, what are people always surprised to find out about you? But what I would imagine, I certainly didn't know the horse story.  Is there anything else that people might be surprised to know that might know you or would call you a friend? What might they not know? [00:07:21] Judy Douglass: Probably a couple of things that would surprise them because I'm very much a strong advocate for what I care about. They might not know that I'm really a soft-hearted pushover and I'm interested in making sure people thrive than even making sure things happen the way I want. And the other thing that always seems to surprise them, not anyone in my family, but them, is I'm not a rule follower very well. I know rules are needed. And I know it is required, but basically when I see rules, I look at what's their objective and then it's how can I fulfill that objective, maybe keeping the rules and maybe not. [00:08:09] Tommy Thomas: So, you've served a long time with Cru.  Anytime I interview somebody that's been with an organization a long time, I ask them when you joined, did you think it would be a career? [00:08:21] Judy Douglass: It didn't surprise me, but because my parents were not happy that I was joining Campus Crusade for Christ, I said, it's just a two-year commitment because that's all we were signing up for. But in my mind, it probably was longer, but I sure didn't know it was going to be the 60 years that I've been part of the Cru staff. [00:08:44] Tommy Thomas: Oh, so when I met you, I think you were managing one of our magazines. And I suppose you had a staff reporting to you. What do you remember about that first management experience? [00:08:56] Judy Douglass: Oh, my goodness. I remember, one, that I was over my head, because what happened was, I went out there and I was planning to go on campus. When I decided to join the staff, I had to give up two important things. I was engaged to a young man I'd gone with all through college. And he wasn't interested at all in being a part of Cru. And, I said, Lord, when are you going to tell him? And God said, if you marry him, you won't be able to do what I want you to do. And, okay, that was something I wanted. I told the Lord when I met him that I would choose your way. And so that, I choose your way, was my pattern through life. [00:09:42] Judy Douglass: And, so I said, okay. But I was also giving up my dream to become a writer and to maybe eventually be a magazine editor. But when I got to the staff conference, Bill Bright called me into his office and he said, we have this magazine we started to use on the campuses, to help staff talk to students about topics. We wondered if instead of going to one campus, you would come to headquarters and do this magazine for all the campuses. And I'm like, what? Yes.  So, God gave me my dream back just right away. The other one came later. [00:10:27] Tommy Thomas: Was that the Collegiate, I'm trying to think, was that the Collegiate Challenge? [00:10:31] Judy Douglass: That was the Collegiate Challenge. And I did that for several years with the whole editorial staff and then their man named Robert was the designer and he was far more knowledgeable than I was. And what was interesting was that we and Campus Life Magazine from Youth for Christ at the same time, we're looking at most Christian magazines, which were tiny print little pictures. Yeah. Just not even readable. And not certainly enticing. And I said, we got to do something. And Bob was really creative. And we ended up making a magazine that when we took it to the Evangelical Press Association convention and entered their contest, we won Periodical of The Year of all the categories, because they'd never seen a magazine like it. [00:11:27] Judy Douglass: And it was full of color, and it was stories, and it was just a totally different thing, but that was that then we decided to start what became the Worldwide Challenge because we realized that staff were having a hard time convincing their parents that they should join this organization that parent's thought was a cult and also help people, donors and those parents and anyone else understand what it meant to know and walk with God. And the things we were teaching the students, lay people by then, we wanted others to hear. And so, we said, and this is one of the biggest things, hardest things I ever did was we said, okay, we'll do this magazine. Basically, I was the editor, and we had about six journalism school graduates. [00:12:23] Judy Douglass: We were not very old and not even very old in the Lord. Not really strong. We had no knowledge of what went on in the churches out there. And so, we're going to do a magazine that's going to represent our ministry. And we were really over our heads, but God was so good. We had no subscribers. We went to our staff and talked them into giving it to their donors. And so we had to start it off. We had 35,000 subscribers because the staff did that. Our theme for our campaign was tell your supporters you love them 12 times a year. And so it was unbelievably wonderful. God gave us wisdom on how to put together a team and I just marveled at what we were able to do and how God used it in people's lives. [00:13:18] Judy Douglass: And it only ended recently because of the cost of postage and the use of net and that there were other ways to communicate, but when I look back at my years on staff, that's one of my main highlights is getting to start the worldwide challenge and see it touch so many lives. [00:13:40] Tommy Thomas: Now was my friend Chuck McDonald on your team? He and I joined the staff about the same time. [00:13:46] Judy Douglass: Chuck McDonald was on my team. [00:13:48] Tommy Thomas: And he was a University of Missouri J School graduate, if I remember. [00:13:53] Judy Douglass: Which at that time was considered the best. ++++++++++++++++ [00:13:55] Tommy Thomas: So, let's go to mentors. Someone in your life who has brought you along on this journey. The two people who had the greatest impact on my life were Bill Bright and Steve Douglass [00:14:06] Judy Douglass: Two people who've had the most impact on me. One would be Bill Bright because when I did the magazine all of a sudden I was reporting to him and some other people as well because he didn't have time to really supervise, but I did a lot of work with him planning the magazine, editing the magazine, helping him write books, helping him write the first five transferable concepts. And so those were sometimes tense times. Bill and I have one huge difference. Bill loves superlatives. Everybody was the greatest or the most talented or the best and that's the way he talked. I'm a journalist. Don't even believe superlatives are acceptable words, because nobody is the best or the greatest or anything. [00:15:02] Judy Douglass: And so, Bill would write these flowery promoting things, and I would get it and bring it back to what I thought was realism. And he would come back, and he'd say, no, and I would put a little bit more back, but not all of it. And we would go about five rounds before I didn't go back to him anymore. I just decided we'd gotten it as far as I was willing to go and as much as he really needed. But that was challenging because we didn't always agree on things and yet he was always kind and gracious to me and positive and encouraging. But more than anything, he was trusting God. I've known a lot of people who trusted God and I've read many but knew Bill very well. [00:15:58] Judy Douglass: And he trusted God more than almost more than anyone I'd ever seen. And that was a huge thing in teaching me to walk with God on a consistent basis and believe that he would lead me and give me what I needed before me. So, he was probably at that time the biggest influence spiritually in my life, the biggest mentor. The other person I would mention is Steve Douglas. Steve and I dated for five years before we got married. But we were friends and then we were dating, and it was a long time. Sometimes everybody said, give up on him. And I said, yeah. And, so I said, Lord, I'm done. [00:16:48] Judy Douglass: And the Lord said, no, wait, don't give up. Don't quit. And so, it took five years before Steve came to a census. But the point I want to make is he was concerned that his parents had not had a good marriage. His father was an alcoholic, and he just was afraid he had too much of his father in him, which, not true, really, except for smart. He was afraid he wouldn't be a good husband as opposed to being so afraid of marriage. And he loved me. And so, from him, I learned a lot of principles of managing and leading because that's what he did. He went to Harvard. And then he came to Cru to reorganize it, which I didn't appreciate. [00:17:36] Judy Douglass: I had to move out of the president's office. But he spiritually just loved the Lord and sought him and wanted what God had for him. And then we were married for 47 years until God took him home two years ago. So just watching him live his life, lead the ministry in the 20 years he served as President. And I just learned how to work with people. He was maybe the kindest person I'd ever met. Just always responsive to people. Responsive to those who worked for him lifting them up. One of the girls that traveled with me, we were on a trip together with Steve and his assistant and we were coming home from a long international trip. And so we're all tired and she's dropping us off at our house and he says, what can I pray for you? And she says, oh, I've got a chair that's falling apart and I just need somebody to help me put it together, so pray for that. [00:18:47] Judy Douglass: He's knocking on her door with his tools in his hand and he fixed her chair and she's never forgotten it. The president, tired from a long trip, hurt her knee and went to meet it. And that would be what he was like. He was amazing with our children. He coached soccer for our older daughter for 12 years, I think maybe it was only 11, but because he wanted to be with her. Because he's naturally a coach, by the way, I've always thought if he weren't leading this ministry, he would be a coach somewhere. Also, he loved the girls that were on the soccer team. Before every game, he called each one to tell her what she would be expecting to do the next day, and his confidence that she would do a good job. [00:19:38] Judy Douglass: And he also did it so he could have opportunities to tell people about Jesus. And, he was very intentional. I'll tell you one other thing he did. I'm nice to people. I really am, but I don't go out of my way all the time. And so in our neighborhood, he would go walk in the morning and to get exercise. He'd listen to scripture on the way out and then he would pray on the way back. He would look for opportunities to meet the neighbors and talk to them. And for several years, until his body was really not working as well, he picked up trash in our neighborhood and the whole neighborhood knew what he did. [00:20:27] Judy Douglass: They didn't know who he was necessarily, but they knew, oh, he's the man who picks up the trash. I have great pictures of him. So, he's seeing, cause it's usually still dark and his pictures, his paper wrapper and a thing that holds three paper, plastic bags. So, he can put the trash in it. [00:20:49] Tommy Thomas: Wow. [00:20:49] Judy Douglass: It was amazing. I learned a lot from both of those two men. There were others, but you asked for the most. [00:20:56] Tommy Thomas: You've probably already answered this question, but maybe not - relative to team leadership, what's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken? And how did you get your team to rally around it? [00:21:11] Judy Douglass: Two. Okay. One was starting the Worldwide Challenge. And I already basically explained, none of us really were equipped to do that job. They entered into it, and we learned and grew together, and the exciting thing is I can name one thing after another that those people are now doing so that they learned well, I learned well, we all worked together, the magazine benefited staff and their donors, and their parents and it was amazing and I am grateful. The biggest thing that I ever did was the Global Women's Leadership Forum. No, actually, the biggest thing that I did was adopt a boy, but that's another story. The Global Women's Leadership Forum, because I'd always been able to do things that I thought I could do, and others apparently thought I could. [00:22:13] Judy Douglass: I looked around a lot and noticed that again, I didn't come from an evangelical Christian background, so I didn't know any of the rules. I just saw, where are the women leading? And so, I just had it that I should see what I could do about it. I first did study and learn some things and when Steve became the U.S. Director, I suddenly had a little more beyond the magazine that was different, and I wasn't doing the magazine because I had two children by then and so I started writing to all of our mothers, encouraging them that God could still use them, even if they've got 5 children at home. [00:23:06] Judy Douglass: There were ways that the ministry could benefit from what they had to offer. And so, I wrote a book called What Can a Mother Do? And it's finding significance at home and beyond. It's still mostly a really good book, things have changed, but as my kids got older and I had a team of people, I didn't have to work all the time. They did a lot of the work, but I began to know a lot of the other women on the field and all of the women in any leadership were called senior women, as opposed to a real title so I just got to know some and grew and studied and got bold. And when Steve became President, he was willing to stand behind me. [00:23:57] Judy Douglass: And we said, we're going to have a global conference to bring together women who have shown potential to lead and help them get started at it. And we called it the global women's leadership forum. And in 2004, so we just celebrated 20 years since this happened. We brought about 400 staff women from all over the world together, for a week in Thailand. And the criteria were potential for leadership or maybe even given some leadership opportunities, but it was not you send whoever the next director's wife unless she shows the potential and we brought them together and we started out and we said your leaders and they all last sticker. [00:24:53] Judy Douglass: And we said no really and we're going to help you start. So, we did a week of training. Some of it was spiritual. We had a wonderful woman, who at 57 left the mission field with her husband and went to seminary and became a professor at Gordon Conwell. And so she came and did our devotions for us. [00:25:14] Judy Douglass:  And Andrea Buczynski, whom I know you've interviewed, was just appointed Global Director of Leadership Development. It took three years for me to convince my husband to tell the board that yes, she would be the Vice President of Global Leadership Development because that's what the previous person's title was. And we weren't nearly as tight and hard to get through as some places are. Anyway, we taught them important skills like leading and bringing a team together and helping people to evaluate themselves and their coworkers and see where they can grow. But we also taught them how to write and how to speak. [00:26:03] Judy Douglass: Everything's just beginning. And how to raise funds, because in Cru, if you want to do stuff, and so they had a wonderful time. We had a fun time with them. They went and rode elephants and things like that. But it was incredible. And all of us, and this is true, I've heard it over and over, had this sense that they were in a holy place. We walked around in this hotel in Chiang Mai, and we could sense God just smiling at his daughters who were believing that they could be more in the kingdom than they thought. And it took a long time to raise the money. I raised the money for it. And to pull together the team that could do it. And when it was almost, when we were just a few months out from doing it, most of the team that was planning it said, this is too big. [00:27:01] Judy Douglass: This is too much. This is going to fail. And then we're going to be embarrassed and it's going to set us back, not move us. And so, the small group of us that were leading it went and talked and prayed and came back and said, God gave us this assignment and we have to do it. And nobody would object as it turned out. It was wonderful that our Director in Switzerland had three women at the conference. They had quotas for their number of staff, and he wrote to me afterwards. He said, if you're going to do things that make anybody else like these three women are now, I'll send anybody because I've never seen such transformation in somebody. [00:27:49] Judy Douglass: And so, it was just believing in them and then beginning to equip them. And then the last thing I'll mention is we said, and if you want to go back to your country or your ministry and begin to start something to train some more people, we have a group of us and various ones of us will come to you and do training. I think we did 40 training sessions in the next two years and right now we have maybe only three global vice presidents who are women, and very capable women. And so that's what drives me more than anything, is to see people become who God made them and do what God has for them.  That vision is what guides me all the time. (If you are reading the transcript, note that we will continue this conversation with Judy next week) Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO When You Love a Prodigal: 90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness by Judy Douglas Secrets of Success: God's Lifelines by Judy Douglas Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:00] Vonna Laue: One of the indicators for nonprofits that anyone who hears me speak knows that I'm always going to harp on a little bit, and that is available cash. Not just cash, because you can look at the balance sheet and see, wow, we've got $700,000 in cash. If that's what the board looks at and starts making decisions based on, you could find yourself in trouble because the available cash that I'm talking about takes that cash number, but then it subtracts two things out of there. [00:00:33] Vonna Laue: It subtracts the things that we're going to pay this week. So maybe we've got payroll coming up this week and we've got a bunch of accounts we're going to pay. I'm going to take that out of there. And I'm also going to take out any temporarily restricted funds that have been given by donors for a specific purpose. If those amounts are held in that cash number, I'm going to back those out. If you back out those two things, that $700,000 might be $200,000. And that board and those leaders are going to make significantly different decisions based on $700,000 versus $200,000.  Right? That's a financial metric. ++++++++++++++++ [00:01:10] Tommy Thomas: You and I have a mutual friend, Alec Hill, former President of InterVarsity. And he wrote of some of the pain and suffering he experienced while being the President of Intervarsity. And he writes, if we pause and reflect long enough, pain is a great teacher. Our character can be transformed more through a day of suffering than a month of study. As I think about your book that's coming out here in a couple of weeks, I would imagine that played into the writing of the book. [00:01:39] Vonna Laue: You are absolutely correct. So, the book is Glad I Didn't Know, and then it's subtitled Lessons Learned Through Life's Challenges and Unexpected Blessings, so it absolutely does play into that. The premise of the book is that there are a lot of difficult things that we go through that if we'd known in advance, we would have done everything we could to avoid those, but if we had avoided those, we'd have missed out on what God had planned for us and the lessons that we learned as a result of it. [00:02:12] Vonna Laue: The flip side of that is also the unexpected blessings. And when I look at things like serving on the World Vision Board, if someone had told me in advance, you're going to be on the World Vision Board. I'd have thought, okay, I need this education and I need this experience and I need to network with this person, and I'd have totally messed it up. But I just faithfully follow one thing to the next. And so would totally agree with Alec there. And I'm glad I don't know a lot of the things that I'm going to go through. And each time we go through something, it makes it a little bit easier the next time to look back on the faithfulness of God and realize, okay, we're going to come out the other side of this and there will be blessings as a result of it, even though it's a challenge at the time. [00:03:01] Tommy Thomas: What lesson did you learn from writing this book? A real practical question. [00:03:07] Vonna Laue: Yeah. One of the things that just in the process that I learned initially, I had chapters for the whole book, and I was just going to write their life stories. And then in some discussions and some just careful consideration, I realized if I did that, it would be really easy for a reader to say, oh, that's nice for that person and dismiss it. And the applicability that it had to their lives. And so, within the book, there are 16 other contributors that all contributed a story of their life that they were glad they didn't know. And so, the encouragement there and just the lesson was if we're willing to be honest with ourselves and honest with those around us, we've all got those stories and in sharing them, there is a blessing to be had both by the giver and the receiver. [00:04:09] Vonna Laue: Tommy, I had a number of people that wrote chapters that when they submitted them said something like, I needed to do that. Or it was a blessing to me to go through this, and there were a few people that I had ideas of the stories that they would contribute because I knew specific things about their life. But all of them, I just asked them to do a story. And many of the ones that I thought the story they would do was not the story. They actually contributed. And so fun to see, just how God's orchestrated that. [00:04:45] Tommy Thomas: What's the most dangerous behavior trait that you've seen that can derail a leader's career? [00:04:54] Vonna Laue: I'm going to look at, especially those who have been leading for a long time. A few years ago, I was pondering a few of the leaders that had not finished well. And, you get, I think you use the word distinguished when you introduced me and I translated that to experienced or old, one of the two, some length of time and so as I think about that, it really hit home. Partially because of the people and the disappointment that I had in the situation, but partially because I realized I'm not in the first half of my career. And so, I want to make sure that I do what I can to finish well. And so back to your question. One of the things that really came out to me was the idea of having people speak truth into your life. The more experience we gain in leadership, the scarcer it becomes to have people who will candidly share the truth with us. With time, leaders tend to surround themselves with fewer people who are ready to speak honestly and openly with them. [00:05:51] Vonna Laue: And the longer we lead, the fewer people I find that leaders have around them that are willing to speak truth into them. We talk about being put on a pedestal. That can happen in a number of different ways. It doesn't mean we're famous. Doesn't mean we have all the glory that some of the people you would think of might have. It can happen to any leader, but we rise up far enough in our career or our organization that we just don't have as many close confidants around us that will challenge us. That will speak truth. And I think that when that happens is when people are more likely to not finish well. [00:06:38] Tommy Thomas: I'm sure. Ross Hoskins at One Hope, he says, surround yourself with people who know you better than yourself and will tell you the truth out of love.  This is how we grow. [00:06:49] Vonna Laue: Amen. He just perfectly summarized what I would agree with. Perfectly. [00:06:57] Tommy Thomas: So, if you were going to write another book and this book was going to be about the burdens of leadership that only the president or the CEO can bear, what would be some of your chapter headings? [00:07:10] Vonna Laue: Have to think about that one a little bit……Chapter headings? [00:07:18] Tommy Thomas: Or topics that you think have to be talked about. [00:07:22] Vonna Laue: Yep. I think the topics definitely are similar to what was just said, choosing people that are extremely accomplished to be around you. We talk about having smarter people than you. I'm a big fan of that. I would also say working in a team. We are not as good by ourselves as we are with a team around us. And so, when you're looking at that key leadership position, you're only as good as the team that is around you. I think also you've got to have that personal and spiritual aspect to it. So encouraging leaders, I often find, and as I speak on personal leadership, when I'm at my busiest, the two things that are easiest for me to give up are my workout and my devotion time. The two things I need most when I'm busiest are my workout and my devotion time [00:08:19] Vonna Laue: The two things I need most when I'm busiest are my workout and my devotion time. And so reminding leaders that you're only as good as you are healthy. That's really important and that's, in a number of different way,s that health spiritually that health physically and the health relationally, you know that you don't sacrifice those relationships that are closest to you because you don't get the time back. We often say I'll do that when this project is over. I'll do that when this season is over. And I think all of the people listening to this podcast probably realize there is no normal, right? We used to say when things get back to normal, I'll do this. And that hectic life that we live as Americans, I think is just normal. And so those are a few of the keys that I think are so crucial for leaders. [00:09:18] Tommy Thomas: I remember when I interviewed Rich Stearns and I'm not going to remember the person's name, but he was talking about his career at Parker Brothers, and he said that there was one of the people in the family that didn't know anything at all about toys, but he knew how to hire a team and that was what made the success of Parker Brothers was this man's ability to bring people onto the team that could lead. [00:09:41] Vonna Laue: I would fully agree with that. I mentioned that I usually am doing a lot of different things. So right now, I'm serving as the COO and CFO of an organization and director of internal audit for another one and doing some audit and advisory with a third and some projects, all of that. But the way that works is the teams that are established in each of those places. Within the team, the mission's organization where I serve, the director of global services role that I have, that's like the COO role, that has operations and finance and personnel and IT and security, that's a lot just in and of itself, but I have four phenomenal directors. That they need encouragement. [00:10:31] Vonna Laue: They need a champion, and they need a sounding board. And as long as I can provide those things, they will do their roles far better than I ever could. In fact, I often say when you hire, you better keep them happy and keep them around because you probably can't do their job. +++++++++++++++ [00:10:50] Tommy Thomas:  If you were creating a dashboard to get at a nonprofit organization's health, what would be some of your dials? [00:10:57] Vonna Laue: Oh, I love dashboards. You just spoke one of my love languages there. So, one of the things that I think is key to a dashboard is that I'm a CPA, so it has to have some financial indicators on it, right? [00:11:11] Tommy Thomas: Absolutely. [00:11:13] Vonna Laue: You have to have those. And the basic ones, you're going to have some things like where you are versus, actual. And you're gonna do some trend analysis in that a little bit, I say, this way in a church. Everybody knows it's December. What season of the year is the lowest attendance and the lowest giving season? Always summer, right? And how do we know that? It's because of trends. And so, trend information can be really helpful.  So, I think that a dashboard should include trends. One of the indicators for nonprofits that anyone who hears me speak knows that I'm always going to harp on a little bit, and that is available cash. [00:12:08] Vonna Laue: So not just cash, because you can look at the balance sheet and see, wow, we've got $700,000 cash. If that's what the board looks at and starts making decisions based on, you could find yourself in trouble because the available cash that I'm talking about takes that cash number, but then it subtracts two things out of there. It subtracts the things that we're going to pay this week. So maybe we've got payroll coming up this week and we've got a bunch of accounts we're going to pay. I'm going to take that out of there. And I'm also going to take out any temporarily restricted funds that have been given by donors for a specific purpose. [00:12:46] Vonna Laue: If those amounts are held in that cash number, I'm going to back those out. If you back out those two things, that $700,000 might be $200,000. And that board and those leaders are going to make significantly different decisions based on $700,000 versus $200,000. Right? That's a financial metric. But as far as dashboards as a whole, my real encouragement there is to look at what your key drivers are. So, look at the financial pieces that you need to monitor, but also look at your non-financial and make sure that they are included in that dashboard as well. Maybe it's your turnover percentage. Maybe it's your involvement in X program. How many meals are we feeding? How many beds have we provided depending on what your program is, but that dashboard report ought to tie to whatever your strategic plan is, so the strategic things that you're looking at. Those are the guideposts of that dashboard that you're going to be monitoring to make sure that your strategic plan is being fulfilled. [00:14:00] Tommy Thomas: On a little bit lighter note, but still probably following the same track. If you were a judge on a non-profit version of the Shark Tank and people were coming to you for early-stage investments, what questions would you need solid answers to before you would open your checkbook? [00:14:18] Vonna Laue: I'm always going to want to know what their budgeting process is. Again, you're asking an accountant. I want to understand that. I want to understand who they've vetted this with. What are the focus groups that you've talked to? Who are the mentors or coaches that have processed this with you? What are your strengths? And where you don't have strengths, who are the people that you have identified and already discussed with that are going to come around you to shore up those weaknesses, if you will. So those are a few of the things that I want to make sure that this is well thought out and it's not just the flavor of the week. [00:15:00] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to board service for a few minutes. So, you're now the chairman of the World Vision Board, or the chairperson, I guess I should say. Give us some highlights of what you've learned about the Chairman's role. I know you watched Joan for several years and watched her successes, and I'm sure lack of on some days. What have you learned there?  [00:15:22] Vonna Laue: I will tell you, Tommy, when they asked me if I would consider taking the chair role, the first thing I said was, did you ask this individual? And I named someone from the Board, and they said, yes. And he serves on a couple of large for-profit boards and doesn't have the time and capacity. And I said, okay, as long as you've shown the discernment that you asked him first, we're good. But then I actually went to that individual and I said, if I do this, will you coach me? Would you be willing to debrief with me after the meetings? [00:16:01] Vonna Laue: And honestly, we just finished up meetings on Tuesday this week. And he and I have a call scheduled for Monday. And he said I'd love to do that. He graciously agreed. And so that, to me, was important. Because I didn't know the role. I had served on the board, but that role is different. And so, the relationship between the Board Chair and the CEO is obviously the most critical. We have a pretty, no, we have a very sophisticated board. I'm odd by who God has assembled in that room. And so, when I first came into it, I would say I was just trying not to embarrass myself, but they are such a gracious group of people. "To run an effective Board Meeting, I review agendas and pre-reads in advance, addressing my questions beforehand so meeting time is focused on others' concerns." [00:16:51] Vonna Laue: And it's important to me that the meetings are well run. And that means I want to see the agendas in advance and speak into those. I want to see the pre reads in advance and have gone through all of those so that if I have questions, I can answer them. I'm not asking those questions during the meeting that's reserved for others, and that those may be questions that others would have. So, let's get those addressed in the pre reads or be prepared. So, I think that the preparation that goes into the time before the meetings is critical. ++++++++++++++= [00:17:26] Tommy Thomas: So, here's a couple of quotes about boards and board chairs. And one is the Chair and the CEO must learn to dance together. And neither can stray very far from each other's gaze or proceed independently. [00:17:42] Vonna Laue: Yeah, I would agree with that. Those are two key roles in the organization. And you have to, I'll use the same analogy I used before. You better be pulling in the same direction. The Board Chair has a responsibility to be the voice on behalf of the Board, and so I feel like that's an important responsibility that it's not Vonna's opinion that I take into there. I seek wise counsel from my board and want to make sure that when I'm having conversations with my CEO, that either the board is informed about those things or that, I'm able to speak on their behalf. But on the day-to-day interactions, if you will, or week to week, those two leaders better be aligned. [00:18:30] Tommy Thomas: Another one, Dr. Rebecca Basinger. Governing boards are charged with safeguarding an institution's ability to fulfill its mission with economic vitality. To this I add, responsibility for tending to the soul of the institution. [00:18:50] Vonna Laue: In an institution like World Vision, the soul of that organization to me is very critical. And it's interesting. I chair the World Vision U. S. Board. I have the privilege of also sitting on the World Vision International Board because we are a federated model and there are World Vision offices around the world  and Christ at the center is one of them. It's our foremost principle by which we operate. And, if that's not lived out in the board, the tone at the top is critical for everything. And so, I would agree that the soul of the organization starts with tone at the top. [00:19:32] Tommy Thomas: So, it's been my experience that the good news about having successful executives on the board is they're used to getting things done. The flip side is that they might have a hard time taking off their CEO hat and putting on their board member hat at a board meeting. Have you experienced that? [00:19:53] Vonna Laue:  To the credit of the current board that I have at World Vision US, I would say I don't struggle with that there. There is a spirit of collaboration by God's grace that exists within there. And so, people are willing to share their experiences and their opinions, but they're not sold on them. They're very open. Have I experienced it in other boards? Absolutely. And one of the challenges that I see in the nonprofit sector, Tommy, is that there are experienced board members that come in with for profit expertise. [00:20:32] Vonna Laue: Which, 90 percent of the time, is fantastic. 10 percent of the time can be challenging because there are unique things. I say if you don't believe there are uniquenesses, go ask the local Ford dealership how many contributions they've received this month. You know what I mean? They don't get any of those, right. There are some unique things. There are some unique laws and regulations that either do apply specifically or specifically don't apply. And so in some board settings, I've seen where for profit leaders have a hard time taking off that hat and being able to understand the nuances that are involved in a nonprofit organization, but really, it comes down to the spirit of humility and service. [00:21:21] Vonna Laue: And one of the things that when you contacted me first, I believe that you couched it this way and said, would you be willing to be considered for board service at World Vision? And I tell people that I responded to you, I'm willing to be considered, let me pray about it. And that I said, that's not trying to buy time or push you off. I legitimately meant that because I think that you have to be passionate about a ministry or a nonprofit board that you're going to serve on. And if you don't have that passion for that particular organization, then you find another one that you can be, because I think that passion is really important in the boardroom. [00:22:07] Tommy Thomas: You and I are old enough to remember the Enron crisis and of course much has been written about it. One writer said that certainly part of the problem was that the board didn't dig deep enough into the financial situation at Enron. How do you ensure that your board members are asking the right questions? Of course, you've been a CPA, that might be an easier thing than another board chair, but I think that is critical. [00:22:35] Vonna Laue: It is, and there are so many things that we have to balance in board member selection. We want to balance Equity and Diversity. We want to balance, within that age. I just encouraged us earlier to consider younger board members and what they can contribute. One of the considerations is what is the expertise that they bring to the board and what skill sets do we need on the board? And the reason for that is to ask those right questions. If I've got an audit committee and I don't have anyone that understands audit and finance, that's problematic. And there may be some that just said, of course I can tell you I have presented to a number of audit and finance committees in my career. [00:23:27] Vonna Laue: That they didn't have an auditor finance expert in that entire committee. In this day and age, we're looking at who has digital experience, who has cybersecurity, or IT experience, and it changes over time. The needs of the board today are different from the needs of the board 10 or 20 years ago. So that's a challenge to us individually as board members to continue growing and learning. But it's also a challenge to us to make sure that we're recruiting the right board members. So, to your point, you've got people in there that can ask the questions of, is this a good investment? Is there a legal liability associated with this? [00:24:10] Vonna Laue: Have we got the right protections in place? What's the end result of this potentially going to be? We don't make a short-sighted decision that we're looking at the long-term impact. What are the reputational impacts of these? We have two roles on the World Vision U. S. board that are assigned at every board meeting. And one of those is the keeper of the core documents. So that person is responsible throughout the discussions to be considering how that discussion or that particular agenda item is tied to our core documents, if there's any implications, and one of them is the responsible skeptic, and that is a formal role that person is assigned in those board meetings, and as we're having discussion, we want somebody to be identified that will challenge and say, wait a minute, back up. [00:25:01] Vonna Laue: Let's not get into group think here. What about, and that they know that they're not just putting their opinion in their hat that they've got this particular role. So, I think those two roles have been really helpful in our setting for our board. [00:25:15] Tommy Thomas: I spoke to Dr. Linda Livingstone at Baylor.  I was asking her about this. I didn't use the word responsible skeptic. I guess I had another phrase, but she said, they usually show up. You don't have to appoint them. [00:25:28] Vonna Laue: I heard that. I heard it when she said that. And I laughed and I thought, that's a healthy board actually, for the most part, because Proverbs talks about iron sharpens iron, and that is really helpful if people are willing to speak up. Oftentimes, we're Christian nice and we don't want to challenge each other and we need to be able to speak up and make sure that all of the facts, all of the considerations are on the table. [00:25:58] Tommy Thomas: I sense that probably the role or the function of risk management has increased for a board over the last decade or two. Am I making a good observation or not? [00:26:13] Vonna Laue: The only thing I would say is that might be the understatement of the year, potentially. Absolutely. The risks that we face and maybe I'm going to oversimplify this, but I think, they used to be known, right? You've got trip hazards. That's a physical risk. You've got the risk of fraud. You put controls in place. Those were known risks. What we face now, to me, are a lot of the unknown risks. What's happening in the cyber world? What's happening with opinions? Reputational risk has increased so significantly, and because it's so easy, and I'll be careful to say this is Vonna's opinion, so please don't ascribe this to any organization that I represent, but, because it's so easy on social media and other media, avenues to state an opinion, and it becomes a perceived fact. [00:27:12] Vonna Laue: Thank you. And for an organization to then have to battle something, that's a reputational risk that we have to consider. And yet we can't control, which is a difficult place to be. [00:27:26] Tommy Thomas: Do y'all have a time in each board meeting where you talk about external threats or is that relegated to your CEO to bring those to the board?  How does that work? [00:27:38] Vonna Laue: Practically? Many of the organizations that I'm associated with have an enterprise risk management or a risk assessment process, and there are people within the organization that are specifically identified that are responsible for that. Not that they're responsible for the risks, but they're responsible to make sure that it's updated. The way that I tend to do it with some organizations is, brainstorm across the organization, pulling together leaders from the board. Leaders from different ministries or departments, people in different functional departments, IT, HR, finance, and just let them brainstorm. What are all the risks? [00:28:23] Vonna Laue: I've done this a few times and it's pretty common that you end up with 600-700 risks that are identified and then categorizing those into whatever categories are helpful for you. But things like regulatory, legal, physical, financial, reputational, operational risks. And then once you do that, you can identify what's the likelihood this would happen. And if it did happen, what would the impact be? So low, moderate and high. And that helps you distinguish, like, how significant are these risks? And when you've got them categorized like that, it stands out, like who the owner of that is, right? Those legal risks are either an in-house or an outsourced general counsel, your physical risks might be the facilities people, whoever, but having an owner for those. High and moderate risks should be mitigated through measures such as insurance, internal controls, or policies. High risks, in particular, should be continuously monitored by leaders and the board, to ensure they are well understood and managed effectively. [00:29:16] Vonna Laue: The high and moderate risks ought to have some mitigating measures in place, whether it's insurance or internal controls or policies. And to me, the high risks should always be in front of the leaders and the board. Usually that's an annual process that they would be taking a look at that to make sure that we understand these risks. We're aware of them because we're responsible for them and we also are aware of the mitigating controls that management has put in place and those seem reasonable. So, I don't necessarily feel like at every meeting, sometimes there are committees. World Vision International, I serve on the audit and risk committee. [00:29:59] Vonna Laue: We have it as a specific component of that committee. So every one of our committee meetings, there is a risk component to that we are looking at. But definitely on an annual basis, that ought to be a discussion that boards are having regardless of the size of the organization. +++++++++++++++++ [00:30:15] Tommy Thomas: This could probably be a whole podcast, but maybe we'll probably limit it. But I would be remiss if I didn't ask an artificial intelligence question. I guess that could fall under risk. It could fall under opportunity. Your thoughts as you sit at 50,000 feet looking down on the nonprofit sector, what's going to happen in the coming years that we need to be aware of? [00:30:41] Vonna Laue: I think it's all of the above. It's opportunity. It's risk. I mentioned earlier that boards are encountering different things now than they did 10 years ago, and they have to be learning individually. And as a board, this is a perfect example of that. We, as board members, have to be learning. We have to adjust to and understand this new technology. Actually, our board had the privilege of sitting in an hour-long session this past week with an AI expert. I think we all walked out of there a little terrified and a little concerned about what this looks like. And that's a great place to be, right? [00:31:25] Vonna Laue: Because it means we know that we've got to lean in. I remember a number of years ago, I think it was about 2006, Walt Wilson, who started Global Media Outreach, he had been one of the initial executives at Apple, and I remember sitting with Walt at that time, and he said, the day will come where you just use apps for everything. And I was like, what's an app? And he's like oh, you'll just push a button. And then it'll bring up all the information for that company. And you'll do everything on this app. And I don't know Walt's age exactly, but I would say he was probably in his early seventies at that time. And I was like, that's crazy. [00:32:10] Vonna Laue: And then I realized, now, he was absolutely correct. And he had the foresight to see that. And I tend to believe that's where we will be with AI. This is here. We better figure out how to harness it. We better figure out how to use it well.  Organizations are just starting to formulate AI policies, what they will allow, what they won't allow. I fully believe that we'll look back on those initial policies five years from now and laugh at ourselves. But we've got to start somewhere and the ability that it will give us and the doors that it opens. I don't think we should be scared of it. But I think that we have a responsibility to do it. Worry less about being supplanted by a chatbot and more about being outpaced by someone adept at using AI to drive corporate success. [00:32:51] Tommy Thomas: I read an article recently and the guy was talking and he said people shouldn't be worried about being replaced by a chat box or something.  They should be more worried about being replaced by somebody who knows how to use artificial intelligence to the advantage of the corporation. [00:33:09] Vonna Laue: Oh, I think that's a great line because the functions that it will be able to take the place of you probably don't need to worry about those, but yeah, the technology that goes along with it, make sure that you're one that knows that. And I'm getting articles from fellow board members on a pretty consistent basis. Some of our staff liaisons in the organizations I serve, there is a lot of information that's out there and I would just encourage any of the board members don't be overwhelmed by it. We all have other responsibilities, right? [00:33:46] Vonna Laue: None of us are going to go get a PhD in AI. But as we start to gain an awareness, I think we'll understand better what our responsibility might be as board members. [00:33:59] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close. I've taken probably more of your time than you had allocated for me today and I'm grateful.  If you could get a do over in life, what would that be? [00:34:12] Vonna Laue: I mentioned earlier, there were probably a couple of meetings, partner meetings that I wish had gone differently. Quite honestly, Tommy, that's the only do over I might take, but I am very thankful to have lived my life without regrets. And that, to your point about failures and everything else, there's value to be had in the experiences that we have encountered, and to lose out on those. I'd probably just mess something else up. So, I think maybe I'll keep the ones that I have. [00:34:50] Tommy Thomas: Do you have an “I wish I had started this earlier moment in your life?” [00:34:57] Vonna Laue: Oh, I would say the one that I've done often on, that I wish that I was more consistent about, is just memorizing scripture. So I know a lot of people that are good at that. I have gone back to that, incorporating that on a daily basis. And if that's where the foundation of my decision making is coming from, I wish that I had a little bit more of that ingrained. [00:35:25] Tommy Thomas: Final question. If you could give a younger version of yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:35:32] Vonna Laue: I learned this a little bit later. It wasn't too late in life, but one of the most important leadership principles that I feel like I've learned over the years, I'd love to just close with for your group, for your audience. And I think it applies that I would have wanted to know this. As soon as I could, and that is when we have a person in a position that they're not succeeding in, we often in the Christian ministry world feel like we're Christians, we can't let somebody go and I believe that when God calls us to something, he doesn't call us to be miserable or ill equipped for it. [00:36:18] Vonna Laue: And so, when we keep somebody in a position that they are not competent or capable of, we're doing a disservice to them. To two people in two organizations, at least we're doing a disservice to that person because we're keeping them where they can't thrive. And it's very hard to make a change. When I stepped away from the managing partner role, that was incredibly difficult. Most of us don't like change. And so even if we're not happy, and fulfilled in a position, it's still comfortable. So, we're doing a disservice to them. We're doing a disservice to our organization because we don't have the right person in the job. We're doing a disservice to whoever ought to be in that position because we haven't opened it up for them to be there. [00:37:03] Vonna Laue: And we're doing a disservice to whatever organization this person is supposed to work for because we haven't released them to go do that. And so I guess I'd come full circle with something I said earlier, and that is people are the key to what we do, throughout life, in personal matters and professional matters. And so, stewarding the people in our life well is something that I think we all need to do. And it would have been great if I'd have learned that earlier on as well.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Glad I Didn't Know: Lessons Learned Through Life's Challenges and Unexpected Blessings   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Vonna on LinkedIn   Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:00] Vonna Laue: I started working when I was 13 at Dairy Queen. And if you work at a fast food restaurant, at least at that time, more than six or nine months, you're in a leadership position and you've got a crew that works with you. So I had that opportunity. And one of the biggest things looking back on it, and I didn't actually realize that until our girls got involved, but 4H was huge in my life. And at the time it was fun. I used to horse show and did a lot of the competitions at the county and state level. But when I then took our daughter to a 4H meeting and realized, wow, this is where I learned a lot of my leadership skills. They operate with Robert's rules of order and the kids run the meetings and they're elected to positions. And so I had that opportunity at a really young age. +++++++++++++ [00:00:55] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Vonna Laue. Vonna is a distinguished leader in the nonprofit sector, particularly known for her extensive work with churches and ministries. Early in her career, she served as a partner for a national CPA firm specializing in audit, tax, and advisory services for the nonprofit sector. She later took on the role as Executive Vice President at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, where she focused on enhancing trust within the church and ministry communities. Her experience is widely recognized. She has authored multiple articles, co-authored three books, frequently speaks at national and regional conferences, and in 2010, she was inducted into the Church Management Hall of Fame, underscoring her significant contributions to the field. [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: Vonna, Welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:48] Vonna Laue: Tommy, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. [00:01:50] Tommy Thomas: I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I first met you; I don't know how many years ago it was, but, Rich Stearns, the then President of World Vision had asked me to help him find some board members. [00:02:02] Tommy Thomas: He gave me some parameters and you were the one of the ones that identified. So, I guess that was our first encounter. [00:02:12] Vonna Laue: It was and that was 2016. [00:02:14] Tommy Thomas: In the words of Crosby, Stills, Nash Young, so much water has passed underneath the bridge since then. [00:02:24] Vonna Laue: Amen to that. [00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: Let's give us a few start up questions. I'm always curious, and I don't know these things about you. Before we get too deep into your professional career, take me into your childhood. What was childhood like? [00:02:39] Vonna Laue: I always enjoy telling people that think about birth order, that I'm a fairly complicated person because I was an only child and that automatically raises some red flags for some people. [00:02:53] Vonna Laue: And then when I was eight, my parents divorced and both remarried within about a one-year timeframe, and I became a middle child in two families. So, if you're gonna play the birth order game, I'm gonna give you a lot of information to mull over in that. [00:03:09] Tommy Thomas:  Where was your childhood geographically? [00:03:13] Vonna Laue: Absolutely. I grew up in South Dakota, which is one of the smallest populated states in the country. There were two stop lights in the town my mom was in and one stop  light in the town my dad was in. We may get into it more, but I had the privilege of going to a Christian school. And so, I tell people there were three in my graduating high school class. It was a definitely small-town America, and everyone knew what you were doing pretty much all the time. [00:03:46] Tommy Thomas: Now we've heard these stories; Even my parents who were raised in Alabama and Georgia, they didn't have the snow part, but they had the part about walking to school five to six miles a day uphill. In South Dakota, did you have to walk to school in the snow several miles a day? [00:04:03] Vonna Laue: I walked to the bus stop, and because I went to a Christian school, we wore skirts and dresses every day. And it didn't matter if it was 20 above or 20 below. And they also didn't have snow days when I was a kid. You went to school unless it was absolutely catastrophic. So yeah, I walked to the bus stop in the snow, in a skirt, many times, every winter. [00:04:30] Tommy Thomas:   Thinking back, what was the greatest gift you think your parents gave to you? [00:04:36] Vonna Laue: Actually, it was that very thing of education. When my parents, even when they were still married and we were living in a small town, they wanted me to get an education. And the best way to do that in their mind was through the local Christian school. And so, while my parents were in a mainline denomination and didn't have a relationship with Christ, that's where I went to school. And those three years and the education and the relationships that the Lord gave me there were critical for me. [00:05:09] Vonna Laue: And then when life changed drastically and over the next four years, we moved multiple times and were in different education settings. I kept begging to go back to a Christian school. And so ultimately my seventh-grade year was able to do that, in a different Christian school. And again, they agreed to that because of the education that they felt like I would receive there, but it was through that I came to Christ. So, I'm a big proponent of Christian education. And subsequently, my parents, grandparents came to Christ.  They didn't know it at the time, they weren't doing it for that reason, but that was by far the biggest gift they gave me. [00:05:50] Tommy Thomas:  You turned out at least initially as a CPA, was that a dream from high school? [00:05:57] Vonna Laue: It wasn't. I don't remember, sometimes there are people that remember what they wanted to do in elementary school and that's what they did. We sponsored cadets at the Air Force Academy, and one of those wanted to be a fighter pilot from the time he was five years old, had every plane hanging in his room and to this day he is a fighter pilot. That wasn't me. I didn't have that idea when I was little. When I got into middle school, I was volunteering at a hospital and thought I'd go into nursing and then wasn't really wild about nursing. And so, when I initially started taking college classes, I thought that I would major in chemistry and physics. [00:06:37] Vonna Laue: And had a semester that I was able to go to Bible college in Minnesota and wanted to take that opportunity. I knew that I couldn't finish there, but wanted to go and take some foundational courses and take things that would transfer back to a state university in South Dakota. And when I went, one of the classes that I took was an accounting class. And I took that class and I thought, this is easy. And then I looked around and realized, not everybody in this class thinks this is easy. Maybe there's something to that. And so, it was then, and I to this day wish that I had gone back to that professor, and just let him know the way that changed the course of my career. [00:07:23] Tommy Thomas: Gosh, I remember my two accounting courses in graduate school. I couldn't say that they were easy. Probably the first one was easier. We were taught our first accounting course by the CFO of Coca Cola Bottling Company in Birmingham. He brought stuff from the office every day to the classroom at night.  I think that made accounting maybe a little bit more tolerable for me. [00:07:45] Vonna Laue: Yeah. Real world application, I think does make it at least a lot more enjoyable. ++++++++++++++ [00:07:50] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:07:53] Vonna Laue: I usually can pull a few of those out. I would say the one I would share with you and your listeners today is, I was apparently the nation's youngest emergency medical technician and always will be because they passed a regulation not long after I got licensed, but I was 13 when I licensed as an EMT. [00:08:14] Vonna Laue: So that usually surprises people. [00:08:17] Tommy Thomas: That's a good conversation starter. [00:08:21] Vonna Laue: I thought you might like that one. [00:08:23] Tommy Thomas: So, you're out of college now. You're in accounting. Can you think back to your first management job and when you had somebody reporting to you?  What can you tell us about that? [00:08:37] Vonna Laue: I'm thankful. I'm going to back up a little bit just in the leadership journey because I'm thankful for the opportunities I had even when it wasn't my career, if you will. I started working when I was 13 at Dairy Queen. And if you work at a fast-food restaurant, at least at that time, more than six or nine months, you're in a leadership position and you've got a crew that works with you. So, I had that opportunity. And one of the biggest things that looking back on it, and I didn't realize that until our girls got involved, but 4H was huge in my life. And at the time it was fun. I used to horse show and did a lot of the competitions at the county and state level. [00:09:23] Vonna Laue: But when I then took our daughter to a 4H meeting and realized, wow, this is where I learned a lot of my leadership skills. They operate with Robert's rules of order and the kids run the meetings and they're elected to positions. And so, I have that opportunity at a really young age. Obviously when I came into the CPA firm, I served there 20 years and over the course of that time, started as a staff accountant and just worked my way up from there into a senior role and a manager role, a partner role, and then ultimately when I left the firm, left as the managing partner at the time of the national firm, so a lot of opportunities and challenges along the way in that, but I think probably the biggest thing is just how important people are and the way that you treat them and the relationships that you develop with them, not in a way that you're manipulative. But in a way that you truly are investing in them, that will serve you and your organization well, but it goes with them wherever they go beyond there. [00:10:37] Vonna Laue: So I look at that as an opportunity to make an investment long-term in a person. [00:10:42] Tommy Thomas: So if we could go back to that last three or four years in the CPA world, and here you are the managing partner, and you let me come into your staff meeting one day and after about five minutes, we dismissed you and I was talking to the staff and I asked them, what's the most exciting thing about working for Vonna?  What do you think they would have said? [00:11:04] Vonna Laue: It's a great and scary thought all at the same time. I think that I would take them on the people journey with me, if you will.  When I left and moved from our Colorado offices to the California offices, one of the things that really blessed me was one of the staff people that I worked with said, when you traveled with Vonna, she invested in the people in the hotel. When we would go to visit the same client year after year, the hotel clerks knew her because she would take time to visit with them and invest in them. I think sometimes that was annoying to people, and sometimes it was good, but created some interesting and maybe even exciting things along the way. [00:11:52] Vonna Laue:  We had a brand-new staff accountant one time, and we were driving back from an audit between Denver and Colorado Springs, and there was a wreck that happened right in front of us. And this poor staff accountant hadn't worked there for a week or two, and I pulled over and threw him the keys to the car and my cell phone and told him to call 911. And I just got out, and he had no idea what this accountant was doing. So I created some excitement, I think, just by the different ways that I would interact with people. [00:12:22] Tommy Thomas:  If I flip that coin, what would they say was the most challenging aspect of working for you? [00:12:29] Vonna Laue: I tend to do a lot of different things. I think you've come to know that about me over the years, Tommy. And I try very hard to let people know that my busyness is my problem and not theirs, but I think that people often are concerned that they're a bother or they're concerned they can't get time. So, I try to work with the people closest to me frequently on how best to manage. And I'm sure that's not an easy thing. [00:13:07] Tommy Thomas:   Successful people are often asked, what makes you so successful? I'd like to frame the question this way, what's a factor that's helped you succeed that people from the outside probably wouldn't be aware of? [00:13:20] Vonna Laue: I'll start off with the primary one beyond the obvious one and everyone's the Lord, right? And then, and I 100 percent agree with that. If God had only ever given me what I prayed for, I'd have sure missed out on an incredible amount of opportunity. So that is a given. Quite honestly. My husband is very instrumental in my success and a lot of people don't know that because Brian's behind the scenes and most people don't know him, but I talk about being raised in a small town and we still laugh about it to this day, but I was terrified to be around people. We went to a football game one time that had a couple thousand people at it. [00:14:08] Vonna Laue: And I said, would you go get me popcorn? And he said, you can get it yourself. And he wasn't being rude or mean. He just knew that I needed to grow. And I was like, no, I don't need it. And he's like go get your popcorn. And he just has had the foresight over the years to stretch and grow me. And now I think this year I will have probably seven international trips, have the opportunity to speak to hundreds of people at a time, just amazing opportunities and that's a big part of it. But on a personal front, I think that the key to that is being willing to be stretched. That's not easy. It's a lot easier to go with the routine, to go with the things that are known. But when you're willing to open yourself up to opportunities to be stretched, to take advantage of uncomfortable situations, you get a lot more opportunity that follows. ++++++++++++++++ [00:15:11] Tommy Thomas: I'm going to make the assumption here that you've had some good mentors in life. Can you take us down that rabbit trail? [00:15:17] Vonna Laue: I love to talk about mentoring. One of the things that I found throughout a good portion of my career was that it was really hard for me to find a mentor. And the reason that I say that is because I could find godly women who would invest in me personally and spiritually, but many of them had the perspective of a stay-at-home mom and that they didn't understand why I had the desire to have a career. I love my girls who are grown now, but always laughed that they would not have wanted me at home with them all the time because I don't care that you're two. You should be able to organize your closet by short sleeve, long sleeve, skirts, dresses, get it organized. So, I had that challenge, with those women that I wanted to speak into that portion of my life. And then when I looked for someone who professionally could invest and develop me, there was almost the opposite of that. [00:16:21] Vonna Laue: And it was, you got to give everything you have to the job. You're never going to get ahead if you try to balance family. Now, obviously both of those I'm saying to an extreme, but I just had a really difficult time for a long time finding someone who understood my faith and commitment to family, as well as my desire to be excellent in my career. And over time, I have done that. Tammy Heim has been a great mentor to me and a good balance of those things. And there have been others, but it has given me a commitment that we find that for other people. So, two things I would say, one is I have a distinction of my own between coaching and mentoring. Coaching I believe is professional in nature. [00:17:10] Vonna Laue: Men and women can work together in a coaching situation. I personally believe that mentoring often flows over into more personal aspects of your life. And it's a holistic approach to family and work and all of those things. And my idea with mentoring is that it should be the same gender, because I don't want to be talking about the difficulties I'm having at home with a male counterpart.  That just isn't appropriate to me. So, I differentiate those two things based on that. And I know not everyone does, but over the last couple of years have had just the extreme privilege of starting some peer mentoring groups for young ladies. And each group is three young women in similar stages of life, but in different roles and in different organizations. [00:18:00] Vonna Laue: So, they don't come in and fix each other's problems by, oh, you need this software, or you need this vendor. They really listen and help each other problem solve. And then each group has a seasoned leader in it that can contribute maybe some of the stories that she's encountered over time, or even just to be the brakes like, but you could do that, but you might consider what could happen as a result. [00:18:25] Vonna Laue:  Two years ago, we started with two of those groups, we're just wrapping up the second year with five, and next month will start 10 groups committed for the following year. So excited about the opportunity to invest in other young women. [00:18:42] Tommy Thomas: So, let me take that just a little bit further and we may come back to it later. Board service has been a big part of your life, certainly in the last 20 years. In your mentoring, are you talking to these women about board service and the pros and cons and if you serve, what's your best contribution kind of thing and trying to give them some opportunities to do that, right? [00:19:09] Vonna Laue: The first board I served on was not World Vision.  I want to remind people, both young people who are getting into board service, get involved in a local community board, whether that is. I served our hospital in Colorado Springs on their governmental committee. Whether it's a local chapter of some organization, the church network and Christian Leadership Alliance served on some of those, taking the opportunities to get involved in that at a more local level and then work your way up just like you would in almost anything else you do. You don't take up woodworking and become a master craftsman overnight. You start small. So, encouraging them to do that and then encouraging boards and leaders to give young people opportunity and don't expect them to come in with 25 years of experience. [00:20:10] Vonna Laue: You open the opportunities for them to come in and the things that they will contribute to your board discussions you can't imagine. So, I'm excited about what the future looks like. [00:20:27] Tommy Thomas: So, going back to personal leadership for a minute, in the book, It's How You Play the Game: The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith, leadership principle #10 is making failure your friend. Can you share something from your life where this has been in play? [00:20:45] Vonna Laue: Nobody likes to fail, but it absolutely is true and the things that you learn from that and I look back on my time as Managing Partner at the firm and what a blessing that was and how gracious those partners were with me, because I would say, at least one of my biggest failures was just in how I handled the people involved there. And I just got done saying I love people and I do, but I will say all of those leaders are incredibly successful people and, no, I don't mean anything bad by this for those that are in a professional service firm, but it is so true that it's like herding cats because they all have their own realm and their own domain. [00:21:33] Vonna Laue: And they're really good at that. And I wasn't really good at bringing them all together at times and helping us find a strategic vision to go forward in, in one direction where we were all pulling in the same way. And so when I hear that quote, that's one of the things that I think about. And that's been a benefit to me in the years after that to look at, how do we get people to pull in the same direction when they have vested interests in a number of different ways? And now I serve in a mission sending organization. And there's some similarity there when you've got global workers that have their own domain in many parts of the world. God used that to equip me for some of the decisions that have to be made in this setting. +++++++++++++++ [00:22:16] Tommy Thomas: Going back to your mentoring thing for a minute, are you introducing failure to these young women? [00:22:23] Vonna Laue: I would say what I have found is that they're introducing some of their own failures and learning from each other and encouraging each other and the opportunity that it provides those of us that are the season leaders is to say, hey, like this isn't a bad thing. This is difficult. And you would have wanted to avoid this, but this is part of your growing and part of your maturing as a leader and to provide some insights there and embrace it and let them learn from each other.  I would say that's probably been the best part of the failure within those groups. [00:23:03] Tommy Thomas: Frederick Wilcox said progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base with your foot on first. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken and how did it turn out? [00:23:17] Vonna Laue: One of the things that I have thought about over the years and comes from the lessons that I've talked about where I was glad, I didn't know, taking the Managing Partner role was a huge risk at the time. I remember vividly sitting with my husband and saying that if I take this role, there's no going back. Like you don't just leave that and go back into the setting where you were before. And we prayed about it and really felt like that's what we were supposed to do. And that was a huge blessing. [00:23:52] Vonna Laue: It was a challenge, like I've just said, but it was a huge blessing. And then, even bigger than that was the year that I left the firm and that was God saying, you've done what I've called you to do here, and now it's time to leave. And I had three arguments for the Lord, and Tommy, I don't know if you've ever argued with the Lord. If you haven't, I don't suggest it. You're not going to win. So just save your breath. But I had three arguments for him. Number one was I was a lifer. I've told everyone for years, I'm at this firm until retirement. I love it. I'm here. And he said, no. And I said, my second argument was this is economically stupid because he wasn't calling me to something. [00:24:42] Vonna Laue: He was calling me away from something. And he reminded me of that cattle on a thousand hills. And I was like, ah, yep. He's got that too. And then my third argument was just a little more logistical and operational. And that was that our oldest was headed to college, but our youngest was headed to high school. And I just said to him, Lord, you can interrupt. My husbands in my life, but let's not mess with our daughter going into high school. Give me four more years and maybe, and he said, no. And so, without having a job, I was supposed to give 12 months' notice. I went to the partners September 1st of that year and said to them, I believe this is a matter of obedience. [00:25:23] Vonna Laue: And I think if I don't do it, it's going to be detrimental to the firm and detrimental to our family. And they were gracious and agreed. And so, I wrapped up in four months. I had 150 or so meetings to tell clients I was leaving, and the firm was fine, network people, that I had connections with that I was moving on. And of course, what's the first question everyone asks you is, so what are you going to do? And this left-brain analytical type A personality had to look at them all 150 times and say, I don't know. And that was a challenge, but it was exactly what God called us to do at that point in time. And I'm glad that while I'm not always faithful and following through, I'm glad that we did that. ++++++++++++++++ [00:26:14] Tommy Thomas: Join us next week as we continue this conversation with Vonna Laue.  Vonna shares insights from her new book, Glad I Didn't Know, which explores lessons learned from life's challenges and unexpected blessings. She discusses the importance of having people who speak truth into a leader's life, the critical role of team dynamics, and the necessity of balancing personal and professional health. Vonna also reflects on the increasing significance of risk management and the impact of artificial intelligence in the nonprofit sector. Tune in for an engaging discussion on leadership, resilience, and growth. Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify  

[00:00:00] Sergey Bogza: Obviously there are strengths and weaknesses in each generation.  The conductor is how to utilize the strengths. Every generation brings a perspective. It's certainly a fascinating process working with the baby boomers, so to speak. The work ethic - you're going to get stuff done with baby boomers.  They just know how to get stuff done, and they know how to work, and show up on time, and be diligent in their work. +++++++++++++++ [00:00:38] Tommy Thomas: Sergey delves into the unique dynamics of working with different generations within an orchestra, highlighting how he leverages the strengths of each age group while minimizing their weaknesses. He discusses the strategic process of assembling and leading an orchestra, emphasizing the importance of understanding each member's skill set before making changes. He also reflects on the balance between rigorous rehearsals and the freedom of live performances, sharing his philosophy on leadership and creativity in the fine arts. This episode is a deep dive into the art of orchestral leadership and the life lessons that come with it, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in leadership, teamwork, and the performing arts. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:40] Tommy Thomas: I want to go to I guess how you assemble an orchestra like, and we'll just take Panama City.  When you came to town you had a group of people that I suppose were members of the symphony. How do you build the team?  Did you have to go out and bring new people in? Did you have to release some that weren't up to what you thought might be possible? [00:02:07] Sergey Bogza: Right? There's a little bit of both. And what I didn't want to do is to be a one-chapter hero or a one act hero act, or I don't know the best way to describe it. And it all started with, first of all, trying to understand everyone's skill set and not making any changes right away. I wanted to become an informed, compassionate leader first, before initiating any changes, before releasing anyone, before recruiting anyone. I wanted to give everyone a fair shot. [00:02:54] Sergey Bogza: I also wanted to give myself a fair shot of getting a clear understanding of where we are as an orchestra from a leadership perspective, from talent depth, and get a few concerts under my belt to see here's where we are and to be able to assess and get a clear understanding of where we are as an orchestra. And then only after that, start making strategic decisions. How do we become a better orchestra? So, the first three, four or five months I was in the data collection phase of talking to people, interviewing orchestra members, and having chamber concerts with selected orchestra musicians. And after I got a clear picture of where we were, only after that, we started making strategic moves, whether it was by way of an audition, or by way of closely working with people. [00:04:00] Tommy Thomas: I want to ask you an innovative kind of question, as it relates to the orchestra. Is there room for the orchestra members to innovate or be creative, or is that pretty much in the hands of the conductor? [00:04:17] Sergey Bogza: It's a little bit of both, frankly. And it's more on the conductor. The conductor will shape more, for example, with a piece that the orchestra has never done, or with a brand-new work that nobody knows. A world premiere. It's the conductor that has a thing called the score where everyone's parts are in it and the role of the conductor is to take all of that data and assimilate it into a vision and then communicate that vision to the musicians or traditional works. For example, classical works that everybody has played.  It is a much more collaborative process. Everybody brings something to the table. It's a collaborative process and they offer and then we kind of mold together into one vision that we present to the audience. So, it's a little bit of both. If I'm being 100 percent honest. [00:05:17] Tommy Thomas:   Over the years, you've worked with people from probably the boomer generation, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. Have you noticed any differences in the generations in terms of when it comes to working together as a team. Is there any group that does it better or any group that says, no, we're not going there? Or am I being too general? [00:05:42] Sergey Bogza: No, I don't think you're being too general.  I suppose in my position, especially in the world of fine arts, you work with all groups of people. And I would say that the four groups that you've described have some similarities. There are some overlaps.  Obviously there are strengths and weaknesses in each generation. The conductor is how to utilize the strengths that every generation brings and perspectives. It's certainly a fascinating process working with the baby boomers, so to speak. The work ethic - you're going to get stuff done with baby boomers.  They just know how to get stuff done, and they know how to work, and show up on time, and be diligent in their work.  But there is also value in millennials and Gen Xers. In our family, my brothers and sisters span about 20 years. So, I've got a chance to get to know each of those generations quite intimately. +++++++++++++++ [00:07:04] Tommy Thomas:  If y'all invited me to one of your practice sessions and after a while I convinced you to let me have some time alone with the orchestra. And I asked them two questions. I'd like your response. What would they say is the most challenging aspect of working with you? [00:07:24] Sergey Bogza: That I'm too punctual during the process. But too free during the performance. [00:07:34] Tommy Thomas: You want to unpack that a little bit. [00:07:36] Sergey Bogza: Sure. Probably during our rehearsal some musicians would probably criticize and say that it's too surgical work, that it's too detailed and too punctual, and we're going to start here. We're going to end there. And now we're going to take a break and now we're going to work on this and now we're going to work on that. And it's very, it's super structured and organized and buttoned up. But when the performance comes, I'm a free man and people will say hold on, we've done this punctual work and then it comes to the performance and then we just sail free and the performance and the sailing free can feel sometimes a little dangerous or on the edge. [00:08:29] Sergey Bogza: And that's what I live for. That edge in the performance. I feel I can be free in the performance, but for the musicians, they want to keep some of that structure that we've had in rehearsals. So as a leader, I'm still learning how to balance those, how to put the group together and give it that freedom, but not for us to fly during the performance. But not to fly dangerously, I love to fly dangerously during performances. It's what I live for, but it's not always to everyone's comfort level. [00:09:03] Tommy Thomas: But you couldn't mean you couldn't have that comfort. I don't imagine if you hadn't gone through all the rigor of what you just described in the first two or three minutes of this piece that you've practiced.  I've heard basketball coaches say that the ball games are won in the practice session. Dean Smith used to say that at Chapel Hill, they won or lost before we got to the game. [00:09:25] Sergey Bogza: 100%. And that's my philosophy. We set the boundaries, or we set the structure during the rehearsals, but in the performance, we just fly. And sometimes I like to fly too dangerously in performances. And so that's probably if, when it comes to some of the criticism of musicians, that's probably one of the things that would say is that, things that we thought were all going to be this loud in rehearsal are now twice as loud in the performance because a spirit has taken over or some things we thought that we were going to take play this fast in rehearsal are now a little slower in performance or now a little faster in performance. But in the performance, you adjust to the spirit of the night rather than the spirit of rehearsal. And that is where the magic happens in performances. And I've always felt that I'm a much better performer than in rehearsal.  As a coach in rehearsals, I tend to be too tedious, too formulaic. [00:10:39] Sergey Bogza: And then like a switch happens when there's an audience and I can't help but to be free. After all, it's what everybody else came to see. They came for the magic, for the wonder of music. And if we perform where the scenes are seen, where the work that the orchestra has put is obvious, where people can see the effort, we've missed the mark. It needs to feel effortless.  When you fly too dangerously, it's sometimes uncomfortable to some people, but it's what we do. [00:11:28] Tommy Thomas: So, on the flip side, what would they say would be the most rewarding part of being a member of your symphony? [00:11:37] Sergey Bogza: The rewarding part, whether it's working with the symphony, the board or other musicians is that we complete projects that we start. And we don't take on projects that have a low chance of success. When we get together and we agree to do something, the majority of cases people know one way or another, this project will cross the finish line. And I think for most people, it's a rewarding aspect. How many times have people started something and never completed it because of the determination factor that didn't come through or somebody else didn't complete a portion of their role with the symphony? We like to do projects that we have a good feeling that we're going to complete. [00:12:36] Sergey Bogza: And when working with the symphony, whether we do concerts or music education projects, our goal, and in most cases when the people sign up, they internally know that this project will cross the finish line. And instilling that confidence that what we work on will be presented eventually, it will complete. This is not a vanity project that will just patter out because of lack of focus or lack of enthusiasm. I think it's what gets people going and people are willing to contribute so much more when there's this confidence that we will cross the finish line together. [00:13:23] Tommy Thomas: A quick question, maybe two, about the pandemic. I can't even imagine what the pandemic was like for an orchestra or a symphony. And then maybe the second question, what did you get out of the pandemic that's a lesson that you can take forward? What was the silver lining? [00:13:41] Sergey Bogza: Time is valuable, and time is fleeing. That's what I took away from the pandemic. And for me, I remember even before the pandemic, people would often say, if I had the time, I would learn a new language. I would travel. I would spend more time. I would learn a new skill. I would discover composers I've never heard before. And then the pandemic happened. And people have all this time and to my surprise, more often than not, whatever people said they wanted to do when they had the time, people didn't pursue those things for one reason or another. So, my thought was like, okay, you must make the time. [00:14:33] Sergey Bogza: One must find the way to achieve your dreams. Because as I've said, during the pandemic, everybody had so much time on their hands to develop new skills, whatever, to achieve some portion of their dreams, but utilizing time to your best advantage is a skill. Probably the time I've learned from the pandemic is that time is valuable. You never get it back. So might as well utilize it to the best of your advantage and use it for your own or your good and to do something valuable with it. That's the lesson I took away from that pandemic. [00:15:11] Tommy Thomas: It is said that we learn most from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:15:33] Sergey Bogza: I'm trying to give an answer to this, but I'm having a hard time coming up with the right answer because strangely I've got used to failure. It's part of my DNA and I suppose I'm not afraid of failure. I hope it's not coming off, sounding too proud. But I wish more people would take on projects that would make them scared. There's so much reward on the other side and embracing, I don't know, maybe it's getting comfortable with fear. [00:16:13] Sergey Bogza: Once one finds a way to be comfortable with fear, whether it's fear of public speaking, of doing something difficult, of doing something where you might embarrass yourself, there's such a reward and beauty on the other side when you can talk to that version of yourself that is fearful. It's the reason why I feel I've taken up endurance sports. During the endurance run, I always come across that weak, pathetic version of Sergey that says, go home, practice your piano. Why are you here in the middle of the mountains running? Your knee hurts. Your head hurts. You're a musician after all. What are you doing here? And when one meets that, and gets to understand those evil thoughts of one's weak, pathetic version of themselves, and one gets comfortable with that part of yourself, and one learns how to have that conversation, that I know that voice. Whether it's music or any other field that says maybe this is not for you, maybe you don't belong at this level, you're not meant to achieve these things. And one learns how to confront that and have an honest conversation, or at least be on equal terms. There's so much freedom on the other side of fear. ++++++++++++++++= [00:17:58] Tommy Thomas: I'd like you to respond to a few quotes. This is always a fun part of the podcast to me. And here's one that would certainly be in your area. It's from Ben Zander, the Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He says the conductor doesn't make a sound. The conductor's power depends upon his or her ability to make other people powerful. [00:18:22] Sergey Bogza: I could not agree more.  Adding anything to that quote would be taking away from it. [00:18:35] Tommy Thomas: Here's another one. No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your credentials, 15 percent by your professional experiences, and 80 percent by your communication skills. [00:18:54] Sergey Bogza: I have no response except to say, keep them coming. Those are wonderful quotes. Communication is, I suppose everything. And in a world of conductors, where we make no sound at all, and we communicate without gestures, with our eyes, where we communicate nonverbally, where we communicate how we dress, how we look at people, our postures, our demeanor, our facial expressions. Our orchestras often say within 10 seconds of the conductor on the podium, even before they give the first cue to start, we know the type of person they are.  And if we're going to have a successful concert. [00:19:48] Tommy Thomas:  Phil Jackson, the former coach of the Lakers, the strength of the team is each member. The strength of each member is the team. Another one. No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. [00:20:14] Sergey Bogza: That is true.  Wow, these are wonderful quotes.  Keep them coming because I feel like I've just become a student. And I'm learning.  There's no response to that. This is beautiful. These are beautiful quotes. And yeah, they apply to orchestras, just like any business or any organization that requires a team to make it tick and work. Another athletic quote from Casey Stengel. Getting good players is easy. Getting them to play together is the hard part. [00:20:53] Sergey Bogza: I have something to say about that. In the musical world, and especially in a professional orchestra, where you're not learning, when you're not working with amateurs, when you're working with people that have years and years of training, and to be in a music world there's no way you cannot have an ego to get on stage, to pick up an instrument, to make a sound and to have that confidence. I have something valuable for people to listen to that takes a certain amount of conviction and takes a certain amount of ego in the best sense of that word. Now, when you get 65 musicians that have that pedigree, that have that background, and to mold all of that into a group, that is tricky, that is difficult. [00:21:52] Sergey Bogza: And that is where quality of leadership is essentially determined. I have had a friend who said, you don't really know how good of a conductor you are until you've truly worked with a professional orchestra. It's easy as a conductor or a coach to work with. I don't want to say it's easy. It's a different ball game. If you're working with, say undeveloped talent, where you have to do drills and you have to instill the basics. But when you're working with professionals who have done it, who know the business, who know how it goes, when on the first go around the orchestra is sounding amazing, when you don't need to point out little deficiencies, when you no longer need to correct wrong notes, wrong rhythms, or the orchestra is not together, when the product is great from the get go, that's when you really learn the kind of leader you are and the depth of your conducting abilities. [00:23:06] Sergey Bogza: Because then you really must give the magic, then you must give the musical leadership, the intentions behind the music, the spirit of it, you have to inspire a great product of what you're already getting that's wonderful. And that's when you really learn what level of a musician you are. Are you an artist or you are a drill sergeant or you're a basic conductor that just knows the basics? That's the tricky part. It's when you get a well-oiled machine. For example, when I grew up, I loved basketball. And in the mid 90s, of course, it was the Chicago Bulls. [00:23:50] Sergey Bogza:  Imagine becoming a coach of a team like that. Winning championships, we've got the best player in the world, you've got the best synergy and your goal as a coach to drive that, to give them something even more, we're not coaching a team that's losing every other game, where you get the best team and your goal is to continue that energy and to elevate it.  That's where you really learn who you are as a leader and as a coach. [00:24:29] Tommy Thomas: Here's a different kind of quote. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:24:38] Sergey Bogza: Yeah. And in the world of music, when you're working with works that have been composed 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 100 years ago, that have become staple in our repertoire world, works that everyone has, everyone knows. And when they come to a concert and you're performing that piece, the conductor's role is to color outside the lines, to give those works a new perspective, a new life. And in that sense would have missed the point by coloring inside the lines. We'll close out with a couple of, two, three lightning round questions. The first one, have you changed in the last five years? [00:25:29] Sergey Bogza: Oh, yes. I think I'm a different person than I was five years ago.   I'd like to say that I'm a more patient and sympathetic person. And I give that credit to my two dogs, Samson and Stella. I've become a dog owner in the last five years. It's a new area of life that I've discovered and taking care of two animals daily has changed who I am as a person. That's one of the things I wish I had done earlier in my life, is to become a pet owner. [00:26:21] Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them only one question, who would it be and what would you ask? [00:26:40] Sergey Bogza: It would be the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. And the question I would ask him is, where did you find the energy and the meaning to carry on? [00:27:02] Tommy Thomas: Final question, what's the best piece of advice anybody's ever given you? [00:27:09] Sergey Bogza: Be humble, be a student, and lead with compassion. [00:27:21] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website – www.JobfitMatters.com/podcast.  If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Panama City Symphony Website Sergey Bogza's Personal Website Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify  

[00:00:00] Sergey Bogza: In Russia, before you went to first grade, it was the parent's responsibility, at least that's what my mom said, for her to teach us how to read and write and know multiplication tables up to 12. So, a first grader starting school knows how to read, write, and knows multiplication up to 12. And so, the entire summer preparing for school exams was my mom drilling me on how to write cursive, how to read, and drilling on multiplication tables. And then there was a time where you have to go and pass the exam and they identified your placement. And I remember it was a hundred percent or one mistake that I made and the sense of accomplishment. After four months of just mom working with you every day, just passing with flying colors. I remember that being such a validation of the efforts that you've put in. +++++++++++++ [00:02:51] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Sergey Bogza, Conductor and Music Director of the Panama City Symphony. When you talk with Sergey, the conversation could go a lot of ways. We could talk about how he excels as an endurance athlete, regularly competing in ultra marathons and long-distance bike rides. We could talk about his proficiency in the kitchen, as it relates to Slavic cuisine. Or we can talk about his two dogs, Sampson and Stella, and how they help him train for his endurance feats. We'll have to leave those topics for another day, because today I want to talk with him about his love for music and his journey from immigrating to the United States in 1995 to becoming the Conductor and Music Director of the Panama City Symphony. [00:03:40] Tommy Thomas: Welcome to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:03:42] Sergey Bogza:: Thank you for having me. [00:03:45] Tommy Thomas:  One of the benefits that I've derived from being a Rotarian is the good speakers we have. And I remember you speaking to our club in Panama City, probably a year and a half or so ago back when we met at the Yacht Club. A lot of times my listeners want to know how I get these guests. And that's how I got Sergey.  Before we dig too much into your professional career I'd like to go back to your childhood. I know you're an immigrant. Can you tell us a little bit about that story? [00:04:14] Sergey Bogza: Sure. We moved to the United States in 1995. This was just a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. My dad had a big family, and he wasn't sure of what the future might be, and he didn't see a lot of opportunities. Mid 90s in Russia was a tough time and when the borders opened and we had a chance to immigrate to the land of milk and honey and opportunity, even though we've never been, my dad took a risk and moved us to the United States. And it's one of the things that we're always grateful to him, to our mom for taking that chance and giving us the opportunity of making a life here in America. [00:05:04] Tommy Thomas: When I talk to someone who immigrated, I have a hard enough time with English as a native speaker.  Did you speak English fluently when you came? [00:05:13] Sergey Bogza: Oh, no. Zero. [00:05:16] Tommy Thomas:  What grade would you have been? Were you a bit in school by then or just starting? [00:05:21] Sergey Bogza: I was nine when I moved to the United States. And I was completing second grade in Russia. And when we immigrated to the United States, they ran all the tests. And zero English, but, geography, math, arithmetic. It was pretty advanced in the way I was doing it. So, they put me in fourth grade.  I was supposed to finish second grade in Russia. We moved to the United States and I ended up finishing fourth grade, so I got a clear leap. [00:05:55] Tommy Thomas:  What's your happiest memory of childhood? [00:06:01] Sergey Bogza: Happy childhood in Russia, let me think. [00:06:04] Tommy Thomas: Or you could do it post nine-year-old. [00:06:07] Sergey Bogza: I think probably two happiest memories that I can think of is in Russia, before you went to first grade, it was the parent's responsibility, at least that's what my mom said, for her to teach us how to read and write and know multiplication tables up to 12. So, a first grader starting school knows how to read, write, and knows multiplication up to 12. And so, the entire summer preparing for school exams was my mom drilling me on how to write cursive, how to read, and drilling on multiplication tables. And then there was a time where you had to go and pass the exam and they identified your placement. [00:07:01] Sergey Bogza: And I remember it was a hundred percent or one mistake that I made and the sense of accomplishment. After four months of just mom working with you every day, just getting passing with flying colors. I remember that being such a validation of the efforts that you've put in. And probably another memorable experience was that in Russia, I don't know why, but it was important that you learn and memorize poetry of great literary figures. And somehow there was always time we had to learn these long poems, memorize them, but in addition to that, when our parents had guests come over, we would be put on a chair and had to recite those poems from memory with intention and delivery. [00:07:59] Sergey Bogza: And there was one time I remember reciting a poem, I forget what it was, but I started it, and it made an impression, but as I kept going, I noticed people started losing interest, and I remember adjusting my delivery to, as a kid, this was happening on such a subconscious level, and having the audience turned around going from uninterested to, oh, he has something to say. I just remember that being a powerful experience as a child, how you deliver things, how you say things makes an impression. So yeah, it's stored somewhere way out there in the back of your brain. But those two things I remember vividly from my childhood, making kind of an obsession making an impression on me. ++++++++++++++ [00:08:49] Tommy Thomas: Now, was music a part of your upbringing in Russia, or did that happen once y'all got to the States? [00:08:56] Sergey Bogza: That happened when we got to the States, but when my parents got together with friends, the guitar and community singing was always part of it. It's almost like a Slavic culture that when people got together, the guitar or piano was present. People sang folk songs or religious songs, whatever it might be. So, music was always around, but it only started as a formal training once we got to the United States. [00:09:26] Tommy Thomas: Can you describe your high school experience in three words? [00:09:32] Sergey Bogza: High school experience in three words: musical, tedious and focused. Tommy Thomas: And was that because of the home emphasis or by that time, had you gotten into the classroom and that had become a part of your career path, so to speak? [00:09:53] Sergey Bogza: By the time I got to high school, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. So, I was in two different bands. I was also in singing and choir. So, it was a musical experience in high school, tedious, because I have to go to these classes that I had no interest in, but still get good grades. So, I can get a scholarship and focus is the word I use because I knew what I wanted to do in high school, or I wanted to know what I was going to do with my life post high school. So, it was a matter of just, I need to finish these four years, I need to graduate, and I need to stay focused, get good grades, and get my musical training, continue with my piano lessons, sing in choirs, and play trumpet in a band. But at the same time, I had to go to these classes that I just had little interest in. So that monotony and tedious was, it's the reason I use that word to describe the high school experience. [00:10:55] Tommy Thomas: What is something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:11:04] Sergey Bogza: There are things besides music that I love and enjoy. [00:11:09] Tommy Thomas: Thus, our segue from our intro and I wish we had time to get into some of that, but we'll hold back a little bit. Obviously, you got comfortable in your leadership skin early in life. I liked that story about telling the poem. I think that even in elementary school it said something about your stage presence and how you were comfortable in that format. Successful people are always asked what makes you so successful. I like to frame the question this way. What's a factor that's helped you succeed that most people on the outside wouldn't realize or recognize? [00:11:49] Sergey Bogza: Wow. That's a great question. And the world of art is a unique world. And sometimes when people look at artists or musicians, they usually catch them when they're doing their art on stage. They catch them when they're doing the 2%, the final product, the performance, when there's this flair, flow, artistry, dashing gestures. And things are just happening. You're in a state of ecstasy. When people see musicians, they catch them at that moment. But what people don't often see is the 98%. The sort of the monotonous work, the planning, the staging, the details. And if I were just to answer that question as to what people don't realize, or what makes it successful is the attention to detail that makes those 2 percent feel like magic. [00:13:01] Sergey Bogza: That's the tricky part of being an artist. What you showcase to people and what you share with people is just a fraction of all the work, the monotony, the tedious, the details, the reworking things, the 50 different drafts that you come up with that nobody will ever see. And all of that is at the service of making that 1%, the 2 percent of the time that you share with the audience to feel like magic, freedom, exploration of the divine, to make your art have a feeling of divineness to it. That's the tricky part. That's what I think most people don't realize. And people will always say obviously that is talent. That's a born talent that you were given by God. And no way. If you knew what this so-called talent has gone through, you would call it maybe craftsmanship, you would call it just stubbornness. There's so many other words to call what people describe as talent, but that's what I would say is the, in other words, you have a view of the forest. [00:14:25] Sergey Bogza: But you know the little details and you don't get the little details yet. Forest, but you have us, but you also know the details that contribute to the feeling of the forest and that I'm probably not summarizing this very well, but that's the general feel of the process there. [00:14:44] Tommy Thomas: I guess you would say that some people come to you in the orchestra or the symphony with more talent than others. I realize it's a high bar to get there in the beginning. In the NBA, even the substitutes are pretty good. Yeah, I'm trying to get my head around the natural talent or the person that just seems to have been born with it. And you say most of it is hard work. [00:15:12] Sergey Bogza Natural. Yeah, natural talent is not enough. It is not enough. And what often happens when people just ride on natural talent eventually comes to an end. There is a cap to natural talent, regardless of how talented one is, difficult times will come. And in the world of art, you are working with masterworks masterpieces. Works of Mozart's of this world. These were geniuses that have given us. [00:15:46] Sergey Bogza: And when you work with that type of level of artistry, no natural talent will suffice. Yes, it's great when you have that natural intuition for certain elements, but the building of the technique, the building of the process, putting concerts together, finding a way to communicate your art to the general audience, to the general public. That is work, and that is craftsmanship. Probably one of my favorite quotes of Johann Sebastian Bach, a man with a talent and a genius, but he described himself as a craftsman, someone who has learned the art of crafting counterpoint of writing 30 minutes of music a week to present at the church services where he worked. So, a combination of talent and craftsmanship is what makes one successful. +++++++++++++++ [00:16:53] Tommy Thomas: Aside from your mom, have you had mentors in your life? [00:16:58] Sergey Bogza: I don't have that one mentor that stayed in my life throughout many years. My life mentors came and went depending on the season of my career or of my musical training or my musical evolution. So, I've had mentors that came for a period, and they guided me through that process. Then there was another stage that came where somebody else would come up. Mentors would emerge from time to guide me in whatever stage of a musical development I was in. [00:17:33] Tommy Thomas: Now did they see you and come along besides you, or did you recognize that you probably needed some tutelage in that area? [00:17:44] Sergey Bogza: They emerged. There's that quote that says, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And so, for me, it was that a new phase of my career had entered and somehow God sent a mentor to appear, whether it was by way of a friendship or a meeting. I've always been blessed with people coming into my life at the right moment. And I don't know why it's happening like this or why it has happened or turned out that way. But I'm forever grateful for the variety of mentors that have been present in my life. [00:18:27] Tommy Thomas: So, I'm going to maybe use the metaphor that an orchestra or symphony is a team at some level. I'd like to go into an ambitious project. What's the most ambitious thing you and your symphony or orchestra have ever undertaken? And how did you get the team to come around you? [00:18:49] Sergey Bogza: I think probably the most ambitious project that I've ever done was my doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota. I don't know of anyone who's ever done a project like this. The majority of times when you're getting your Doctor of Musical Arts, you'll write a paper and then you would conduct a concert, a shorter concert. What I've decided to do is to do a transcription of Richard Strauss tone poem, Don Quixote, which was originally written for about a hundred musicians. And I wanted to distill it to about 16 to 17 musicians. So rewrite the entire piece that was written for a large orchestra, one of the great tone poems, distill it for 17 musicians, perform it in three different venues so I can get the acoustics feel for three different performances work with 17 talented musicians, hire a videographer, hire a photographer to capture this, and then based on all of that, rewrite the piece one more time. [00:20:00] Sergey Bogza: So that way I would have something that I could sell, present, or rent for other orchestras to use. So that way other organizations that don't have a hundred-piece orchestra could use a chamber version of it. And so, when you're young and you've never done anything like this before, it can be really tricky and it was a difficult project and maybe to answer the question of how did we get the orchestra or in this case, chamber orchestra to pull this project off. And the answer to that is, in this case, the leader, me, in this case, had to be 100 percent sold on the project and to provide leadership in all the areas of that project, whether it was musical, logistical, advertising leadership, novelty leadership. This was a novel project that we've done and probably in a span of three months of putting it all together. [00:21:14] Sergey Bogza: The amount of life lessons I've learned on how to be a leader in difficult situations. There were times where I wanted to call the university and say, I'm done with this project. I don't want to do this anymore. This is too difficult. But we followed through. We did the difficult stuff. There were opportunities to give up at every corner. But when it was all said and done, and then the dust settled, I really felt like I had a kind of a breaking moment, like I've entered a new level in my leadership skills and I was able to see, as I've described earlier, having a big picture. [00:22:06] Sergey Bogza: But then also knowing all the small nuances and details and how they play into the big picture presentation and that ability going between big picture, small details, big picture, small details, and having that fluidity. And never losing the big picture for whatever little, small problems that come across was what made that project so successful, not only to that, but then to also commit clear communication to everyone involved of how those details are contributing to our eventual success in this project. [00:22:49] Tommy Thomas: So, when you recruited your chamber members, were you recruiting peers in your mind? Were you recruiting maestros who might've been beyond you perhaps in their level? [00:23:03] Sergey Bogza: No, I was recruiting peers. It was a peer orchestra. I was working with people who are my age. Students at the University of Minnesota. So, this was working with the professional musicians who just had years and years of experience. We were all doing it for the first time. Like we were developing a prototype, so to speak, a company prototype. And so, we were all new to this. And even though we were all new, I was the leader. I have to guide people who are new to this. But also, I was new to this. So, it's okay, how do you navigate this? How do you keep the band together, so to speak, and not lose anyone, even though you are walking with a group in uncharted territory? How do you find a way to inspire them and to not lose focus to the very end of the finish line? [00:24:08] Tommy Thomas: But go to your having done this in a much different way, but having put together a doctoral dissertation and having to sell it to the committee. Did you have to sell this to the committee as something new or were they excited that you were going to break some new ground? [00:24:26] Sergey Bogza: Oh yeah, there was, I knew that this was something different. I did have to convince a lot of people of the validity or why this project is important. Because frankly what I didn't want to do as a musician or as a conductor is to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours in front of a computer screen typing up a dissertation or doing a research project. I wanted it to be a hands-on experience of working with musicians, writing this new arrangement, reserving a variety of venues, and advertising to get the public to come to these performances. It was a new project. And thankfully when it was all said and done, I had a product, I had a musical project that I was able to advertise and give it to other people. And a variety of orchestras have hired that arrangement. And so, I just feel so thankful for having gone through that because whereas had I gone the traditional route, my dissertation would be collecting dust at some libraries, bookshelves, forever forgotten, but I have a project, a dissertation that is in circulation that are people finding useful, that there's a market for it. [00:25:46] Sergey Bogza: And obviously it has worked out now. I didn't know it was going to work out. I thought it might be successful. It might completely fall through. And the committee would come back and say, redo the whole thing. We want to see a 30-page paper, but now to be a success. And it was a gamble. It was a risk-taking adventure and I'm glad it all worked out. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:26:08] Tommy Thomas: Next week, we continue the conversation with Sergey Bogza, where Sergey delves into the intricacies of assembling and leading an orchestra. He also shares his approach to understanding each member's skill set, making strategic decisions, and balancing the structured rigor of rehearsals with the freedom of a live performance. Anyone who might've thought, what can we learn about nonprofit leadership from a symphony director will not want to miss this episode. Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Panama City Symphony Website Sergey Bogza's Personal Website   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify   

[00:00:00] Karen Marsdale: I might be a little bit averse to risks, but because I learned so early on by being really naive and thinking that my husband and I could run a business that really needed a lot more cash flow and ready cash that we just didn't have. [00:00:13] Karen Marsdale: But because I failed and from that failure, we created success. And when I say success, we were able to get back on track and work hard and buy a house and send our kids to college. And, that early failure made me feel that if I could do that and come back from it, I'm not really afraid to fail. [00:00:38] Tommy Thomas: This week, we're resuming the conversation we started last week with Karen Marsdale, the co-director of Hannah's Hope in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Hannah's Hope is dedicated to helping women with children who are facing homelessness in Berks County. The primary focus is on women, who despite their current situation, sheltered potential and determination to rebuild their lives. Karen will also explain how she and her co-director have split senior leadership duties to play to their individual strengths. While this sometimes leads to complications, it's working wonderfully at Hannah's Hope. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:25] Tommy Thomas: Give us a thumbnail sketch of Hannah's Hope and the trust that y'all have there in Berks County. [00:01:31] Karen Marsdale: Okay, so I'm just going to give a little bit of an educational piece here for about two minutes in the world of homelessness. And we see it of course now. It's front and center everywhere we go in terms of, media or, in seeing people on the street. There's a continuum of homelessness. [00:01:51] Karen Marsdale: And we teach people all the time that when you see one homeless person, there are people in the continuum that are chronically homeless. Those might be people who are addicted and they don't want to give up their addiction. They're going to be on the street. They're going to be in tent camps. [00:02:06] Karen Marsdale: They're not going to be moved into the next .They're not somebody who has had one thing happen. And now they have become homeless. Then you have people who are homeless because of an incident or something that's happened in their life and they need a certain amount of care. [00:02:23] Karen Marsdale: What we do at Hannah's is very focused on women with children who are in that place where they have abilities. And we have a very robust application process, three interviews. One of the interviews usually encompasses our trauma therapist, because she's getting from the where is this person in their mental health? [00:02:48] Karen Marsdale: How do we check their mental health? We look at where they've been in terms of, have they ever had a job? So women that come to us and I say this, and it might sound a bit on feeling, but we're looking for women who you would say would be the advanced placement or the A+ women who find themselves in a homeless situation who really have the ability, the grit. [00:03:12] Karen Marsdale: And again, when I say ability, it's not just the want to, but do they have the ability to learn skills that can help them to get a a job or go to classes that they can get training, some sort of basic training so that they can get a living wage job. So our goal is to take women for 12 to 18 months, teach them life skills. [00:03:35] Karen Marsdale: Business skills, all the skills that they need. It can be things like even how to clean, how to cook. Essentially they might not have some of these skills, but they have some of them and they've not learned all of them. But we want to get them to a place ultimately where they can live independently for the rest of their lives with their children without necessarily having a mate. And one of the biggest problems that we see, particularly with women with children, and this is why there's domestic violence and abuse, is the fact that they've never had the background, or they've never had the family environment where they've been loved, nurtured, and cared for. [00:04:24] Karen Marsdale: So they're always looking for love, as the saying goes, in all the wrong places. And it really, in the world of trauma, is called a trauma bond. So when people say, why does she keep going back to a domestic issue? It's because that's a bond she has, and to some degree, a woman feels comfortable there. [00:04:42] Karen Marsdale: And she very well could have seen her mother, her grandmother. It is now generational, probably three generations of homelessness. And when I say homelessness, it's, it could be, I'm living with an aunt. I'm living with somebody who acts as a relative in the Hispanic community, especially which we deal with a great deal of, there's always these extended family people who are not really relatives. [00:05:07] Karen Marsdale: So I'm living on my aunt's couch. I'm living with my cousin. That is homelessness. So they may have been living that way, all their lives with a parent. So we're very selective. If a woman has an addiction issue, we are not a facility to be able to help them with that. [00:05:28] Karen Marsdale: We try to guide them to the right places in our community, but we have a very narrow band of what we're looking for in Hannah's Hope, because we really want you to be a success, and we're looking for those who can be successful. So it's vetting. It's a vetting process. I like to say, and when I talk briefly about this, I'll say, three women in the past 12 months have bought their own homes. [00:05:52] Karen Marsdale: And these are women who would say, I never thought I could even own a car. Or even get a license. Our program is, like I said, it's very robust. They have to be in programming four nights a week, in other words, classes, budgeting, parenting, trauma therapy, Bible study, and spiritual growth. [00:06:16] Karen Marsdale: And then there's always things going on beyond that. They have responsibilities like cooking for the house. So that could be up to 18 to 20 people that they're cooking for a couple times a month. Taking turns, they have to clean, they have to clean the entire home, which is two levels. [00:06:32] Karen Marsdale: It's not easy. And then they have to go to work and then they have to be in class and their children are in classes. We feel that one of the problems in the whole shelter movement that has happened is sometimes it's been more about the women than the children. [00:06:50] Karen Marsdale: So children are just drug along and they're in as much trauma as the parent. So we help the children if they need extra services through school or through some of the resources in the community. We just had a little guy who came in who was nonverbal. He is now getting extra help. [00:07:07] Karen Marsdale: We found out he was actually tongue tied, literally. So he has to have the tongue snipped to be able to really speak. And he's doing fabulously. But I would say in most shelters, he would just be sitting in the room, maybe going to get daycare or whatever, but he wouldn't have a case manager, at his age. [00:07:27] Karen Marsdale: So we try to, because every child that comes to us is always below what they should be in terms of their age range. So they're navigating and learning at a much lower level than they should be. And that's just because they've been homeless and drugged from one couch to another for their lifetime. [00:07:46] Tommy Thomas: In your current work and probably back at the chamber you had some experience in developing the next generation of leaders. Give me, from your perspective, give me some keys to bringing this next generation along. [00:07:59] Karen Marsdale: That's a good question. And, again there's I think I, this was just intuitively who I was. [00:08:08] Karen Marsdale: I want to give opportunity to folks, and particularly in the work I've done, it's been primarily women, although I've had men who've worked under me. I want people to grow and to learn how to lead themselves, meaning I want to give them responsibility, according to what their skills are right now, and give them the opportunity to feel like they can make some of those decisions that they need to make to become a leader that I know they could be. [00:08:45] Karen Marsdale: And if I hired somebody that wasn't up to that kind of skill level, maybe they were great at doing another type of job. And I was always looking for those who probably didn't know within themselves that they had the ability to do much more than they thought they could. [00:09:02] Karen Marsdale: So I'm looking at what I always said. I don't want you to come to me with a problem. I want you to identify a problem and then come to me with a solution. And then you will then exercise on that. And that problem will be solved because you solved it. [00:09:22] Karen Marsdale: And then you could execute according to what you've uncovered and discovered. [00:09:28] Karen Marsdale: Even if somebody fails, a few times of doing this and they come back and say I thought that this was the answer. You say let's go back and relook at what went wrong in the process. And I just, I'm going to have to do this right. [00:09:40] Karen Marsdale: Currently with a situation that I just found out about this morning. And I'm thinking in my mind of how I'm going to go to this individual and say, you jumped the gun on this and this is the outcome. And I had to step in and take care of it. But how could we have, how could you have done it differently next time? [00:09:59] Karen Marsdale: And I always felt, and years later, people will say, to do it. You are such a mentor to me and I take that so that's such a compliment. I take that with a lot of humility because, you have an expectation as a leader from whomever you're reporting to. And so those behind you, you really have an expectation for them and if they don't deliver, it's on you, it's not on them. [00:10:23] Karen Marsdale: But I just think like that, that confidence that they have, that you have their back. You are loyal and especially, they've earned it, so you have to earn it, but it's that loyalty, it's that humility, it's leading from behind, making sure they have the opportunity. I've had women go on to do much more complicated things and in larger companies than I did. [00:10:49] Karen Marsdale: But they said, you were the one that gave me this feeling of confidence that I could do it. [00:10:56] Karen Marsdale: Does that make sense? [00:10:58] Tommy Thomas: It does. And it reminds me of an article I read on team building. And the writer said, identify your evangelist, those people in your obsession who love to work, work for them is not a job, but a source of excitement, reward them, give them a platform. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: So you would resonate with that? [00:11:16] Karen Marsdale: Absolutely. And you know what, is a leader born or do you make a leader? And I think it's a bit of both. But someone has to come with an innate desire that work is a passion and they don't watch the clock. And it's not that you ever take advantage of people, but you'll sense them. [00:11:38] Karen Marsdale: You'll sense who they are. You're evangelists. And then you work with them. There's nothing, there's no greater reward or feeling to see those evangelists do really well. [00:11:50] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a favorite interview question or an interview question that's really worked to help you get below the surface? [00:11:59] Karen Marsdale: When I get below the surface, I will ask somebody, why would you want to come to work here? [00:12:04] Karen Marsdale: Is there something about this place? When we get into ministry work, I think it's a little bit different because there is absolutely no denying that people have to come. Because this is a calling. It's not a job, but they also have to have the skills. If you're a case manager, you have to have those skills, but then you come because there's something here. [00:12:31] Karen Marsdale: And I've had people say that there is something here that is different from where I've worked in the secular world and at the chamber. I think, again, because we were so much part of the community and people knew us, saw us. Were involved with us, whether it be my company's involved and I bond and they people I'd love to work at the chamber and I think oftentimes they would think it's just, oh, you could just go to meetings and you meet with people and your network is let me tell you about the work that happens behind the screen. [00:13:03] Karen Marsdale: There again, I would ask somebody, why would you, why do you really want to come here to work. And that answer is very important. Very important. [00:13:14] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to employee turnover for a minute. What have you done over time to reduce or mitigate employee turnover? [00:13:23] Karen Marsdale: I'm going to say, and I feel very how can I say, I didn't have a lot of employee turnover, either at the chamber. [00:13:33] Karen Marsdale: We're now at Hannah's Hope and I've been at Hannah's for about five to six years in this position of first interim director and now co-director. And I think it's because I feel I have a pretty good ability to hire well. And when I've not, when I've had a, okay, we really have to have someone in this position. [00:13:54] Karen Marsdale: I've not found my evangelist. I have not found my A player, but I'm going to hire B. It typically, down the road, it's, we have to have a parting of the ways. And the turnover primarily, I will tell you in the chamber for me was because we were such a unique organization that people got so much exposure in the community, in the business, and even the nonprofit community that when someone came in and they started to develop and people would see who they were and what they were doing, people just picked them off. [00:14:34] Karen Marsdale: And I had more, there were more times that I'd have somebody come into my office, particularly women, close the door and start to cry and say, Karen, I got this great offer from, and I'm like, that is wonderful. That is great. That's what I want for you. Make sure they pay you what you're worth, so that I think and at Hannah's we've had very little turnover. [00:14:54] Karen Marsdale: I've had to say goodbye to one individual, but I gave this person a lot of, I wanted to coach and mentor, and she didn't want that. And we came to a place that just, it wasn't going to work. [00:15:08] Tommy Thomas: It's been said that we learn a lot when we fail. And if that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:15:16] Karen Marsdale: I think it's ego. I think it's fear. I think it's what will I ever do if I fail? And so that, therefore I think people don't take risks. And I might be a little bit averse to risks, but because I learned so early on by being really naive and thinking that, my husband and I could run a business that really needed a lot more cash flow and ready cash that we just didn't have. [00:15:40] Karen Marsdale: But because I failed and from that failure, we created success. And when I say success, we were able to get back on track and work hard and buy a house and send our kids to college. And, that early failure made me feel that if I could do that and come back from it, I'm not really afraid to fail. [00:16:04] Karen Marsdale: I really have really very little ego. The biggest challenge I will tell you, in my years of both in chamber work a little bit in corporate work, small business. And now in the world that I'm living in at Hannah's is my almost fear of failure. [00:16:23] Karen Marsdale: Because Hannah's Hope, about six and a half, seven years ago was not in a good place financially. We knew what we were doing in terms of what our mission was, but we relied too much and this is so non profit, this can be the case. [00:16:46] Karen Marsdale: Leaning on a few people financially and not worrying or not doing the work that you always have to do, which is knock on a thousand doors and ask a thousand people to help you do this work together, and so we weren't very well known. We didn't have a lot of income coming in on a routine basis, like monthly donors, etc. [00:17:06] Karen Marsdale: And we had to start from scratch with that, and, my name is behind it, and I know a lot of people, so I will not fail. We cannot fail at this. And it's a little bit challenging for me right now. I think I have a little bit of PTSD, and we're doing very well and  we've got great outcomes. [00:17:27] Karen Marsdale: We'd like to have a hundred percent, but we're dealing with people and people in very critical places in life. So you're not going to, not every woman is going to want to stick with this program and become and they want independence, but they don't want to work hard enough for it. [00:17:42] Karen Marsdale: But fear of failure is, I think the thing that has, it has led some people to not have, not do the things that they really, that God has given them the gifts to do. Because they're just too comfortable. [00:18:01] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what would be some of the chapters in your book? [00:18:15] Karen Marsdale: I think the first would be and you've heard this, but it's lonely at the top or how, what does it mean when the buck stops with you? What does that really mean? Do you want that? Or, like a whole chapter on when things happen, it rolls downhill and you're going to have it. [00:18:40] Karen Marsdale: I think another, and I, my mother always said to me, and it's scriptural, like there's nothing new under the sun. So when you look at things, you need to understand that a leader is one who can, how can you find your evangelist? And then how do you know when to get out of the way and let them lead? [00:19:05] Karen Marsdale: I have seen more people because of ego and self importance. So this is really a lesson for a leader and a CEO. How do I make sure that I'm hiring people that could be smarter than me and be secure with that, be secure to hire better people than yourself. So those are a couple chapters that I would have. [00:19:33] Tommy Thomas: You have the current role of current director at Hannah's and I've seen that work before and and I've seen it not work. Sure. How are y'all doing it? [00:19:44] Karen Marsdale: We just incorporated this model as of January. And I will tell you really, again a young woman was, everyone's young to me. [00:19:53] Karen Marsdale: So she's in her forties. She's primed to want, this is a passion of hers. She's got a lot of skills that she probably didn't even realize she had. And so really what I'm doing, Tommy, is we've fallen into this where she works. She works really in the clinical, I might say, like managing the case manager. [00:20:15] Karen Marsdale: And again, we're small. The org chart isn't very deep. So I try to find myself being her mentor. And she'll make a decision or she'll make a suggestion or, and she'll be, and it'll be more in the clinical sort of the mom's suggestion, like how are we managing this individual? [00:20:36] Karen Marsdale: And every day, because we're so deep with these families in every aspect of their lives, that things will come up that we have to discuss and make a decision on but I will let Mary, even if we disagree slightly, I'll let her make that decision. And I'm trying to stay in the world of development, making connections. [00:20:59] Karen Marsdale: Doing what I naturally did at the chamber. I just did all of that, but staying away from her area of having made decisions about them. When I say clinical, that's talking about case management and what the area that is not my wheelhouse. Some of it you become to know, you come to know pieces because it's just logical and intuitive with an application but we work very well together because ultimately, and this is where I think there's a little bit of a difference between, in there's another nonprofit in our area, which is quite large. [00:21:34] Karen Marsdale: And they have co directors, and I actually met with the one gal, the one co director, a couple of months ago, and I was actually on some things that we were, I wanted to get clarity on what they were doing, because they sent a woman to us, and it was not a good ending. And so I said, Peggy, how does it work with you and your co director? [00:21:53] Karen Marsdale: And she said they had an executive director for years, she and this other woman were doing parts of the in parts of the organization, which were very different parts. And she said when the executive director retired, the executive director came and said, I think you two would make great co directors because you work well together. [00:22:12] Karen Marsdale: You both have your own areas of expertise and it's worked well. And the one is most definitely the face of that organization. And that often happens too. And particularly in nonprofit work, and I've said this to our board when they would say your interim now, isn't about time we get a director. [00:22:31] Karen Marsdale: And I said, first of all, we're faith based. I believe that God brings the fruit. God will bring the right person. I may not be able to find them. It's not like that, I'm looking for an accountant and I'm in an accounting firm. When Mary came, it was a, God, this is the next executive director, or the next director, when I really can move into, or, again, I want her to be the director, and I think that, that is what we're doing, we're very open. [00:23:00] Karen Marsdale: Mary, you'll need to take the helm and run this organization. Whether I'm behind you doing some work for you or whether the Lord takes me home or whatever, it's our plan. And this is our succession plan really. [00:23:21] Karen Marsdale: And boy, you know what, it's like when people don't have a succession plan in a business, particularly small to midsize family owned businesses. So that's why I look at the co director and we keep saying we've got to sit down. We're running with scissors. But we've got to sit down and say, okay, this is really my area. [00:23:39] Karen Marsdale: Karen's area. This is Mary's area, but we just intertwined so well. And she really feels and says, because people will come up and say, you're very fortunate to have Karen as your, you know, mentor. And she knows it. And I'm not saying that. Please know I'm not bragging. [00:23:56] Karen Marsdale: So does that make sense to you? It's really a succession plan. But in order to have her seen in the community as my equal, I felt we needed co directorship titles. [00:24:14] Tommy Thomas: It sounds like you got, yeah, your example and your friend's example, you got two of them in the area that seemed to be working. [00:24:21] Tommy Thomas: So that's good news. [00:24:24] Karen Marsdale: Yes, it doesn't always work. And because honestly, and truly, I, very rarely would I ever say that I've seen the only time I've seen businesses where they won't make a decision, particularly in family owned businesses where succession planning, and nobody wants to say, where my husband worked for a company like this, and actually our last governor of the state was, it was his family owned business, they could not make a decision on who would be president so they rotated two brothers and a brother in law. [00:24:54] Karen Marsdale: That was a disaster and of course it would be. And so I would be more leery of that than I am. You know when it's right. But most times it's not up to say that. [00:25:06] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. So you serve obviously at the chamber, you work with boards. You report to a board. Now you serve on several boards. How did your first nonprofit board come to pass?  [00:25:15] Karen Marsdale: The first nonprofit board and because the chamber is nonprofit, I did a stint for about a year and a half as the interim president of the chamber because we had a CEO that left through marriage and a move and nobody was in place when this all happened. So the search committee took about a little over a year to find some of them. [00:25:45] Karen Marsdale: So that was my first board, the chamber board. [00:25:49] Karen Marsdale: It was pretty overwhelming. It was a good board. And the reality was the chamber was very well run. And the role of the board versus the role of the staff was very defined. So there was not an issue there. [00:26:02] Karen Marsdale: So I think I sailed into a place where it was just, I needed to make sure that everything was being kept very much in alignment with what had been done well for so long. And I think it was really the first CEO that I worked for who really made that happen. [00:26:24] Karen Marsdale: And working at the chamber, we also did a lot of work with nonprofits. We partnered on a lot of things with others like universities in the area who do nonprofit courses and our community foundation that does a lot with, how do you create a good board? [00:26:38] Karen Marsdale: How do you manage? What's the role of a board? So I had seen terrible situations. And seeing nonprofits dissolve, that's probably the biggest issue. And especially today because people don't want to volunteer. Going to paid boards is a whole different ball game, but too many nonprofits are not training their board of directors to know this is what you do. And this is what you don't do. And the two should not be confused. With the chamber board, I was a little, I just was always just hyper vigilant when it came to, okay, what needs to be done, get that agenda and all the notes out on time, make sure that everything is everybody's ready to report. [00:27:35] Karen Marsdale: It was a couple million dollars in operating budget and so it was not complicated, but for me, I just stepped into the role. I wasn't mentored into the role. [00:27:51] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, give me, maybe give me some words and phrases that would describe a good board chair. [00:27:57] Karen Marsdale: First of all they know that they are the major advocate for this organization. [00:28:03] Karen Marsdale: They represent the organization to the public. They're also in the role of being a board chair, you want every one of your board members to understand and make sure that they clearly understand. Their position, their role. And this is very hard. [00:28:20] Karen Marsdale: It's volunteers. Don't like to tell other volunteers, when you pay somebody, you can tell them they're not doing a good job and they better do it or else, there's going to be consequences. It's hard for a volunteer to tell another volunteer, but I think they have to have the ability to say, you know what, Joe, you've missed three meetings, do you feel like perhaps you don't have enough time for this board? [00:28:39] Karen Marsdale: Because this is not acceptable. So a good board, a good chairman of the board makes sure that the board is doing what a board does. You don't do the job of the staff. You never call a staff person directly. You talk to the executive director or the director. [00:29:02] Karen Marsdale: And a good board chair person always protects. And this is when things are running well and everybody's really doing their job. You always protect your executive director, president whatever the lead person is in your organization. Now, I will tell you, Tommy, this is where we have not, the thing that we're doing, and again, we're a young organization, Hannah's Hope. [00:29:26] Karen Marsdale: We are constantly looking for, I would say, more qualified people on our board. And I actually act as the board president too, which really is not the best scenario. So I'm always cognizant of making sure that our board, which is only seven people, is very much aware of everything that I'm doing. [00:30:10] Karen Marsdale: I want to make sure that they're aware of everything that we're doing and so that they can feel very comfortable that they don't have to get involved. And it's really, it's an art and a skill to create a really good working board. [00:30:29] Karen Marsdale: And there's a difference between the working board and an advisory board. And some of our folks think they're just advising. And so I've had to very diplomatically say we're going to expect some action on your part when it comes to, say an event or something of that nature, or fundraising, and every board member should be able to make an ask for your organization and not say I don't know anybody. [00:30:58] Tommy Thomas: So let's bring this thing to a close. I got 2, 3, 4, shorter questions. Maybe. What's the best compliment anybody's ever paid you? [00:31:10] Karen Marsdale: I think the compliment I've been paid from an individual was I am just so grateful that you stepped in to Hannah's Hope and turned the ship around. [00:31:29] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? [00:31:34] Karen Marsdale: There was a man who ran a steel company here. They had probably about 5,000 employees. And one time, this is just so simple, but it's so true. And he said, you get in trouble for what you say. Not for what you don't say. And that might just sound very basic. But when you think about people will say things, and if you move that down the path, sometimes it can be very, you don't mean to do it, but you're gossiping, you're throwing someone under the bus. [00:32:09] Karen Marsdale: This man happened to be a believer and he was just so well respected in our community. But he was speaking at the chamber. He said, I learned a long time ago, you get in trouble for what you say and not for what you don't say. [00:32:21] Karen Marsdale: So if you think it's not worth saying, if you think I shouldn't say this, don't say it. And that's easy, it can be a big part of life. [00:32:33] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would you say? [00:32:40] Karen Marsdale: I guess I would say have confidence in yourself. [00:32:44] Karen Marsdale: You're going to be something that you never thought you were going to be, or could be. And, so there again, it goes back to the fear of failure. And never giving up. [00:32:58] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

[00:00:00] Karen Marsdale: I wanted to be a ballet dancer and I was very serious and was in ballet lessons and modern dance lessons almost every day of the week by the time I was in junior high. I went to dance camp in the summer, went to the University of Connecticut for a summer with the Martha Graham School of Dance. And then after my senior year of high school, I spent six years in New York doing a program with the Joffrey School of Ballet. My ultimate dream was to go to Juilliard. I did not make the cut. And I think that should have been a little bit of a signal because it's like dance is professional sports one in, how many million really become the prima ballerina at the New York city ballet. +++++++++++++++ [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Karen Marsdale, a longtime contributor to the economic vibrancy of Berks County, Pennsylvania. Karen spent almost 27 years in senior leadership roles with the Reading Chamber of Commerce and Industry before joining Hannah's Hope as co-executive director. She took her BA in fashion merchandising and business management from Stevens College and serves on the boards of several nonprofits in and around Berks County. Karen, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:16] Karen Marsdale: Thank you, Tommy. It's a pleasure to be here. [00:02:20] Tommy Thomas: I'm a huge fan of all that a well-led Chamber of Commerce can do over the years I've observed, what good things happen when the Chamber takes a role in promoting economics and also when they take a role in incorporating the non-profit sector into the life of a community because I think that's important. When I learned of your background, I just jumped at the chance to have somebody who's done that and then migrated over into the role with Hannah's Hope. Again, thank you for joining us. Now before we dig too deep into your multi-pronged career, let's go back towards the beginning. Take me into your childhood and what two or three things do you remember that maybe has contributed to you being the person you are today? [00:03:06] Karen Marsdale: I'm an only child. And so that in the era that I was born and raised, that was a bit unique because big families were more the norm then than they are now. I think one of the things that kind of charted my course was I was always around adults primarily. Now we did live near relatives, so I had cousins and aunts and uncles, you spend most of your time with your family, meaning your parents. And so, I think that being an only child did not only, particularly for my mother, have the, maybe the opportunity, sometimes it didn't feel so opportunistic to have someone who was just looking at you as the in, the child that they're raising and nurturing. [00:03:52] Karen Marsdale: So sometimes I might've felt a little bit overwhelmed, but when you're an only child, I've read books on birth order etc. And one thing that I learned from that was an only child is like a firstborn times three. When you're an only child it is like being a firstborn times three. You tend to be alpha; you tend to be a leader. [00:04:09] Karen Marsdale: So, you tend to be alpha, you tend to be a leader. And I'm not saying these things to say, this is who I am. It's just this is often what happens. My mother was a bit sensitive. And so I was sensitive. I know I got my feelings hurt a lot. And mother was not exactly grin and bear it. It was oh, you poor thing. So, I think, and that was a lot about her background. And it's just so interesting. And now today, especially, my work at hand as you see how much background in childhood impacts the life and the trajectory of an individual. I do remember one time I broke my arm, and my father was rough and tumble and praise many was a welder and, oh, you're fine, you'll be fine. And my mother then took me to the hospital. I got it casted up and I almost waited all day for my father to come home, jump in the driveway and say, see, I told you. It's funny little things that you remember when you're in elementary school. Those are some of the things I remember. [00:05:17] Tommy Thomas: What'd you want to be when you grew up? Karen Marsdale: Oh, my word. This is something that when I tell people, they're like, really, if they've never known this, or we've never talked about it. I became interested in ballet in about fifth grade after about four years of taking classes and not liking them because I really, and this taught me a great lesson, which I'll talk about in a minute. I wanted to be a ballet dancer and I was very serious and was in ballet lessons and modern dance lessons almost every day of the week by the time I was in junior high. [00:05:48] Karen Marsdale: And I went to dance camp in the summer, went to the University of Connecticut for a summer with the Martha Graham School of Dance. And then, after my senior year of high school, I spent six years in New York doing a program with the Joffrey School of Ballet. My ultimate dream was to go to Juilliard. I did not make the cut. And I think that should have been a little bit of a signal because it's like dance is professional sports one in, how many million really become the prima ballerina at the New York city ballet. So, I did go to Stevens College. My first year, I was a dance major. They had a good program, went there and then changed my major, but all through those years of especially junior high into senior high. And then towards senior high, I was teaching some classes at the dance school that I went to, and I had an excellent teacher. Like sports, dance teaches discipline.  You have to show up and work hard. [00:06:42] Karen Marsdale: She was a mentor. And I'll tell you what it taught me was number one, discipline. Because discipline and dance is as much discipline as it is, excuse me, in the sports world. You have to show up and work out. It taught me discipline. On a Saturday morning, if I didn't want to get up and go to a dance class at 8 or 9 o'clock, I still had to go. The other thing it taught me, because through dance, I also did, in our small community, we had community theater. I am totally tone deaf, so I can't sing. I couldn't be in, and when I was in musicals, and I did do some relatively, one in particular, I did a relatively important part in a musical. Community theater taught me stage presence.  I can speak to a thousand people because I am not really speaking to a thousand people, I am looking at and speaking to a particular person on the front row. [00:07:25] Karen Marsdale: So, I had to learn lines. When it came to the, just to the music, I just would lip sync, but it taught me a bit of stage presence that still to this day is very useful because I've often said I can speak to a thousand people and not being really terribly nervous because you learned that you're not really speaking to a thousand people. You're looking at somebody in the front row. And so I can do that. And sometimes I think it's less intimidating for me to speak to that group of an audience when we're doing a what, through the chamber. And we had some events that had over a thousand people, and I could get up and speak. [00:08:09] Karen Marsdale: And it was probably easier than speaking to the board of directors, when I speak about something that was a bit challenging. So that, just folks don't realize the things that kiddos can gain from being in different types of activity. [00:08:27] Tommy Thomas: So, you graduated, you had maybe decided that the dance was not going to be totally your career. What happened then? [00:08:37] Karen Marsdale: You mean after high school? Rather after college, right? Yeah. Okay. So, after college this is really again, something that is, typically someone gets a job looking at their major, etc. But what my husband and I did, and I will tell you, I was married after my junior year of college. My husband had come back from Vietnam. We went back to where I was at Stevens College in Columbia, Missouri. He did a year at the University of Missouri to finish up his degree. And then we took a funny, rather interesting term because we went back to our hometown and maybe this was the best thing or the worst thing we did, but we bought a small business, and it was really in the area of, and again, your understanding, it's back in the seventies, it was a woman's boutique. We sold some small, but we also sold fashion. We saw fashions, we sold gift items, we sold accessories. And my background in fashion merchandising. We decided to do this. My parents wanted us to do it. I think only children who think about this, come back home. Don't go a thousand miles away for work. [00:09:43] Karen Marsdale: So, we were in our own business for about eight years. And my husband also took a sort of a crash course while we were there in our hometown in upholstery. So, he opened up his own business. Here's two 20 some year olds in their own businesses and they're not second-generation family businesses. So, it was a great experience. We were going to New York on buying trips. We were meeting with sales reps. We were hiring people. We only had a staff, mostly part time of about five people. And it was a great experience. I look back now and think, through my life it really made us the people that we are because it did not turn out particularly well. [00:10:27] Karen Marsdale: Maybe we were more naive than we thought. And after about eight years, we had to liquidate the business. We tried selling it. It was not a good time in our community. And so, we weren't able to sell the business.  By this time we had two kids and a house and we had to liquidate everything to pay off our debt, and I'm very open to tell the story. Our first business failed. We had to liquidate everything to pay off our debt.  We walked away with less than a thousand dollars.  We moved to Reading, Pennsylvania and started over. [00:10:47] Karen Marsdale: We had to pay off all our debt. We walked away with under a thousand dollars. We moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, where I had some family and uncle and his family. And my husband had gotten a job prior to before we moved, and we started all over again. And we were still young enough to, it was a blow, and it was emotionally challenging, but we just picked ourselves up and said, you know what we've got is ourselves. And we both have skills that we can hone and give to someone. And one thing that it taught me, and this is why I think my career at the chamber was so rewarding and why I understood to some degree what it takes for a small business owner, because if you've never signed the front of the paycheck and had to make payroll, you don't know what it is. [00:11:42] Karen Marsdale: To really understand what business is all about, even the smallest of businesses. So that was a great life lesson. Amazing. And I just feel that everyone needs to take everything they do as part of a life lesson to move to wherever they go from there. [00:12:04] Tommy Thomas: So how did you get involved with the Chamber of Commerce? [00:12:07] Karen Marsdale: Okay. So that was a little bit down the road. When we first came here, I did a couple of jobs that were, I would say not temporary, but not what I would think would be my career. Again, it's that world of knowing people who know people and networking, which I just can't say enough for knowing people and networking and being a true person that cares about others and networking in that fashion. So, I had a very dear friend. She's still my best friend to this day, 40 years later, she was on the board of the chamber of commerce and a small business owner, had a couple of businesses. She is a very outspoken wonderful individual, with great high moral character. She went to our then CEO and my first CEO of the chamber and said there was an opening. There was not an opening. But she went to him and said, I have a friend and if you hire her, I'm going to guarantee she's going to make you look good. And I had an invitation to speak with the CEO. We had a great conversation, not really an interview. He said, you know what, Karen, I don't have anything right now. [00:13:19] Karen Marsdale: He said, but the next time there's an opening that you seem to be would fit, he said, I'm going to call you. And within, I think three weeks, he called me because the director of marketing gave her notice and was going someplace else. And he called me in, and he said, do you want the job? And I said, absolutely. I didn't even ask what the salary was. We negotiated that after I got the job, it was crazy. But so that was my introduction to the chamber world. [00:13:46] Tommy Thomas: At that time, I guess you had a staff when y'all were in the retail business, but yeah, think back to the first time you really had a group of people reporting to you, what kind of memories do you have of that? [00:14:00] Karen Marsdale: It was challenging because again, we, most of the women that worked for me, and they were women, obviously, it was a woman's boutique, as they would call it back then, were much older, they were my mother's age, some of them might have been a little bit older. But I think what made them respect me as this small business owner was the fact that I respected them and got to know them and cared about them and their families. And we were a team together doing this work. And they chose to be working where they were because they really enjoyed the atmosphere, the customer experience. And, I was a rookie, you're 23 and you're managing people who are 55 years old and you're just, I think one of the keys is you always have to respect those who are working for you while making it clear what the expectations are of the job. Servant leadership doesn't mean you're anybody's lacky.  It means you put that person first and find the greatness in them. [00:15:01] Karen Marsdale: But leading as I call it and, servant leadership, which doesn't mean that you're anybody's lacky, but it means that you put that person first and you find the greatness in them and help them. When that happens, I think I just did it at first, not knowing necessarily what I was doing. I was thrown into that. And my husband is also, he's an extremely intuitive person. He was the partner in the business. So, we did this as a team. And I think that was a good mix that we were both there working with and managing this small staff of people who really wanted us to succeed. It just, it was organic, I think. +++++++++++++++ [00:15:49] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you and a team have ever undertaken and how did it work out? [00:15:57] Karen Marsdale: So, I will tell you, fast forward to the Chamber of Commerce. And one of the things that I loved about the Chamber is very entrepreneurial. Now that does not mean that I didn't have to work really hard. I should say entrepreneurs work. They never don't work. I think that's the thing that I loved about that and small business owners and people who were growing businesses, but I was in a position of leadership.  I had earned it.  I had proven myself, and I had some really great women in leadership in the community. [00:16:26] Karen Marsdale: And we just began to see that our women's programs at the chamber and most chambers will have some kind of women's programs, quote unquote. And they said, we're not really, we're just doing the same old thing and having a luncheon and, then people go away and, oh, that was great, but how does it help me in the workplace? So, we undertook to take, basically, a year to create an organization and this is how it was defined. It was an organization within another organization. And so, we created what we called Women to Women, and that was an organization within the chamber. [00:17:05] Karen Marsdale: We had our own programming, our own model. And it was really to help women in the workplace find their skills. And how could we help them move into leadership roles and again, from my background and from who I am as a person, this was never meant to be. And this is why I think it was so successful and why even men in the community said this is the greatest thing to really have a place where women can feel safe. They can build and develop skills and training because it was never women against men. These were not, we were not looking at men as chauvinists. Men and women can work together so well, and women at the table bring so much to the table. That was the essential foundation of what Women to Women was about. [00:18:01] Karen Marsdale: It was very hard work. I went out and got businesses to underwrite the work of what we were doing. We built our own membership within the membership of the Chamber, and it was a huge success. And I can remember we worked so hard. And that was not only getting the credibility of what we were doing, but pushing the sort of boundaries of we're going to do our own programming aside, along with the chamber that your chambers often do workshops, etc. But we really had some amazing successes. And we get a national speaker woman to come in. In the beginning of the fall of the year to kick off the whole year of training and development. And there were companies that joined the Chamber in order to be part of Women to Women. [00:18:53] Karen Marsdale: And to this day, it is the most successful program in their over 100 years. And it's going strong. And as a matter of fact, I'll just tell you a little aside. Last night, I was at a function, a gala for a nonprofit and sitting with a group of younger women, and the one woman said, I was just at lunch, and I overheard a group of women behind me, and they were talking about Women to Women. And she said, I wanted to lean over and say I know the founder. And again, Tommy, this is a big deal in a small market. So, I'm not talking about a national movement, but I had chambers around the country call and ask, how did you do this? I don't think I could ever get our board to do it. [00:19:36] Karen Marsdale: And I'd say, yeah, you know what? You have to keep working and working. I hate to say it, but it's true. Primarily made up of men. We'll embrace this. And see the value and say, this helps my company because I have women that I want to promote to leadership or their women in leadership. And there's all kinds of things we did mentor programs, lean in circles from Cheryl Sandberg from Facebook, who wrote this whole curriculum on, how do women navigate in the world of business. There were all kinds of things going on. And still are. And I will say one thing that a staff person I'm still in contact with, and she's done amazing things, moved from the chamber to other nonprofit work in development. And she said to me one day, this is really hard. And I said, yeah, Carolyn, this is very hard, but if it was easy, wouldn't everybody be doing it? That's just my mantra. ++++++++++++++++ [00:20:32] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned you had to go out and get your funding and I've noticed on the Hannah's Hope website, y'all have what seems to be a very robust corporate community of sponsors.  What did you learn about fundraising during those early days? Everybody is in sales.  Even if you are the receptionist in the dentist office, you are selling something.  We must develop that mindset. [00:20:47] Karen Marsdale: Okay. The thing is, I'll just say this one thing, everybody is in sales. I don't care what you do. If you're picking up the phone at the dentist's office and you're saying hello and you're selling something.  And so therefore, we all have to have that kind of mindset. I learned very quickly that you're going to get more no's than you are yeses, and you have to believe in what you're doing. So I took that to heart and I really don't give up on things. [00:21:19] Karen Marsdale: So again, if I know that this is good for people, I know this is good for your company to be a part of say Women to Women, or now Hannah's Hope Ministries. If I know, because what we're doing is so important, I want you to be a part of it. And you need to assist us in making an investment in what we're doing. And that's how I always really knew that you have to get as much value as the customer as we're getting, as the product. A good thing to remember is you need to, if you're getting those, you're doing a good job because you're going to get more no's than yeses. [00:22:02] Karen Marsdale: But again, and I, and a dear friend of mine who was a major player in the banking world here, a female, said, it's just a matter of the numbers. If you make this many calls, you're going to get this many no's. And now again, this is not just, this is saying you've got a good product. You understand your product. In sales you will get a lot of nos.  There is an old saying – “is this no for now or no forever”. It's beneficial to the customer. You're going to get no's. And you know the old saying, is it no for now or no forever. And so you hang up the phone and say, okay, that was a no. Let me make three more phone calls and I might get a yes. And I always wanted to end the day saying, gosh, I should have made those three phone calls. [00:22:38] Karen Marsdale: I'm going to make those phone calls before I leave the office. And so even with Hannah's Hope, quite frankly, I don't want to say it's an easy sale, but what it is, it's an investment. And it's funny cause I just sent an email to somebody who people say, you're never going to get him. And he's one of the premier car dealerships in our community. And I sit on a board with him and it's like I'm not going away, John. So the reality is, let's have a conversation because I know you want to invest in people. You have the fortitude to do this and not take it personally when someone says no. [00:23:15] Karen Marsdale: And again, I don't take it personally and I just move on to the next. And then I go back to that person. And yeah, I might not be making sense but again it's how successful people have to do this. It just doesn't come easily. +++++++++++++++++++++++ Next week, we'll continue the conversation with Karen. In that conversation you'll learn about the comprehensive programs at Hannah's Hope that empower women to achieve independent living, Karen's innovative leadership and mentorship strategies, and how Karen and her co-director are making the model of co-director work in an amazing way. I hope you will join us for that conversation. Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com   Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the conversation that we began last week with Andrea Buczynski - recently retired Global Vice President for Leadership Development and Human Resources at Cru. Her narrative is a testament to the power of purpose driven leadership. Throughout the podcast, Andrea emphasizes the value of teamwork in collaboration. Her story is particularly inspiring for those interested in how personal values and professional demands intersect in nonprofit leadership. Her journey illustrates how embracing change fosters a supportive team environment. And maintaining a clear focus on organizational and personal goals are crucial for effective leadership. Let's pick up where we left off last week. ++++++++++++++++++= [00:00:52] Tommy Thomas:: When I was talking to Dee Dee Wilson, she's going to be a guest here in probably three or four weeks, but she was talking about this and I'm sure y'all have a name for it, but this peer group of women that both of you and I guess up to 15 other people are a member of, a peer-to-peer kind of iron sharpens iron kind of thing. I'm guessing. Tell us about that and maybe how y'all got into that. What it's been like. [00:01:17] Andrea Buczynski: Yeah, the group is called Arête Executive Women of Influence.  And it's a by invitation membership and we ascribe to a common set of values. We espouse Christian values as leaders and are committed to confidentiality. And so, what that does is it creates a common experience and a safe environment. And I'll tell you, there is nothing like being with a group of women who are high achieving, who are very ethical, strong character, competent and the kinds of, I would say both empathy, understanding, and wisdom that emerges, as we listen to each other and cheer one another on. [00:02:12] Andrea Buczynski: It's wonderful to have kind of a safe port where you can be honest about the stuff you're experiencing. Many of the women will have experienced something similar and bring their own experience to your journey. And so, I found it immensely helpful. [00:02:30] Tommy Thomas: Now, as I think Dee Dee said, you had people from the private sector as well as ministry and possibly government. I don't know. What is your mix? Without breaking any confidentiality. [00:02:41] Andrea Buczynski: We have a marketplace. It's a C suite largely, but it's academics.  I have to think for a minute. We have entrepreneurs, marketplace, nonprofit ministry. Yeah. [00:02:59] Tommy Thomas:  Was this something that's going on in other sectors and y'all modeled after somebody else or did somebody come up with this idea and said we need to do this. [00:03:11] Andrea Buczynski: The one who founded the organization is Diane Ogle. She'd be a good interview. She had done something like this some years back and while she was living here in Orlando as part of the Christian Chamber and she had a number of men approach her and say, I think you need to do something for women. And so, she had this idea. She shared it with a few people. And I think one of the first people she shared it with said, I think it's a great idea. Could I be in it?  By the time I came, there were probably five or six women already in the group. I couldn't tell you any more than that part of it. [00:03:54] Andrea Buczynski: But what I've loved about it, Tommy, is the advice that fits the kind of role that you have. And so, in Cru, I don't want to use the word complaining, but let's say I was talking about being tired or I can't stop working, very common with high achieving anybody is where is that switch to turn off? In the evening, most people in and even on my team would say you need a vacation, or you need to take some time off and it'll be better. I had the vacation. I had the time off. That was not the point. I got to this group and at one of the very first meetings, a woman just looked at me, there was someone else sharing the same struggle, and I echoed, I said, you could be reading my journal. And she just looked at the two of us and she said, this is what got you where you are, this very quality. [00:04:51] Andrea Buczynski: And she said, you have to manage it because it's not going away. It's hardwired in you. And so how are you going to manage it? And we got into a whole discussion about what that might look like. And you can begin to see the difference in there's a recognition of the kinds of things that you're dealing with that makes it just more than collegial. It's kindred spirits. [00:05:16] Tommy Thomas: As I said earlier, you've had a long and storied career with Cru, and you've seen society change, you've seen culture change. Everybody's got an opinion on cell phones and social media. Give us some insight on the college campus today and then with the workforce, because you've got 22 and 24 and younger people in your workforce.  Maybe not reporting to you, but in your department. [00:05:43] Andrea Buczynski: Yeah, it's really interesting to change the dynamic of the whole availability of information I think has had a big effect on organizational leadership. So, when I was coming up our leaders would send us articles to read or something like that to enrich your thinking.  I loved it. I'm a learner at heart. And I thought, this is what leaders do. They help grow their people by exposing them to other ideas and then thinking through how this affects the ministry here at Cru. Somewhere, in the 90s, that began to change radically in that leaders were no longer the people who were dispensing information. [00:06:25] Andrea Buczynski: Information was widely available. I don't remember when Wikipedia came into things, but I do remember disposing of my mother's set of Collier encyclopedias, it was just like they're worthless now because it's not the latest edition and they stopped printing them at some point. So, with information being widely available no team member is dependent on their leader to help them find things. Everybody literally in conversation can just go, let me Google that and we'll figure out who wrote what the latest thought is or what that means. So, the effect on organizational leadership that I've seen is we used to train on how to do something. [00:07:13] Andrea Buczynski: And we still do. And then we began to lead in terms of what is it that we want to accomplish? What is the outcome? And that hasn't changed. But it's just what came first. Learn how to do this. And then I'll learn the big picture. Now the big picture and the how is readily available. The why is what people need to understand. So, when I look at that generational spread there's some people you could just tell them what to do and they will be automatically aligned to the organizational riverbanks that have been created. They understand them, but the new generation coming up, I think, does not have that background. [00:07:54] Andrea Buczynski: And you have to supply it. So, it's not just here's how you do what we do, or here's what we want to see happen, God willing. It's why would we do it this way and not that way? Because now you have a hundred possibilities available to you on Google or YouTube or TikTok. And so, I think organizational leaders have to be more mindful about ideation coming in from outside the organization that may not be lined up with the values or mission or vision of the organization. And it requires a little bit more let's say vigilance or a very good fluency in the why we do what we do and why we do it the way we do it. Do we answer more questions?  We answer more why questions now than we did previously. Does that make sense? [00:08:47] Tommy Thomas: I'm trying to process that. So how does that play out in terms of delivering content across the three or four generations? You probably don't have too many people our age, but you might, and then you go back to the next two or three generations. What have y'all learned about, delivering, maybe content is not the word I'm looking for, but, delivering what is your message? [00:09:12] Andrea Buczynski:  So there's some tension there. So, if I were talking about organizational communication, for example, across five generations, you always have to go, what is the topic? And why are we talking about it? And what's going to happen? Or and then how is it going to move forward? So, if you're introducing, say, organizational change, I think those are important things. People can live with a lot of ambiguity if they understand how you're moving forward. They don't have to have all the answers at once, right? [00:09:45] Andrea Buczynski: But if you're talking about training delivery then I'm looking at it going anybody under 35 is going to expect a mobile delivery. Can I get it on my phone, or can I get it on my iPad? People in my generation, I went to our help desk the other day and I said, I have to do an update on this software.  When I look at this screen that comes up, I'm totally confused. So, can you walk me through it? Like I need somebody, now that might just be me. [00:10:19] Tommy Thomas: I have that problem weekly, it seems like with apps and software. [00:10:26] Andrea Buczynski: I am not a digital native so mobile delivery may not be the best thing for my generation, they might still like a high touch delivery and then the spectrum in between those two. So, we've tried a bunch of things like every organization, the webinar format works for some things, and not for others. The in-person training works for some things and not for others, but we were surprised during COVID that we were able to convert some things that we thought needed to be face-to-face into being able to be done online if needed. And so, I think now if you're in a training kind of role, you have a pretty hefty toolbox. And being selective of what to do, but the move toward mobile has been interesting for me to observe with some of the people on my team who are younger who are like we choose this learning management system because it has mobile capability versus this management system, which requires you to be on a laptop or something. +++++++++++++++ [00:11:36] Tommy Thomas: Let's go back to the restructuring for a minute, you talked about this big restructuring project that y'all went through and you had stepped up to more of an international leadership role. What was behind that? How did y'all come to the decision that you needed to eliminate, a strata of leadership and was that a global decision? [00:11:57] Andrea Buczynski: We had a numerical goal for the year 2020. And so, we were coming up around somewhere in around 2017-2018 people started asking what's coming after 2020. And at the same time, we were seeing some organizational complications of the way we were structured. So, it's not uncommon in a matrix organization to have the tensions built either strategy versus geography or, you name it. We had a variety of those things where we could see obstacles in the structure that we weren't able to overcome with any kind of behavioral initiative, right? As we began to look at it we were also in a presidential transition. [00:12:48] Andrea Buczynski: We started to work on it. And then held up a little bit because of the presidential transition and then reactivated when the new president was involved. But basically, during those years what happened was an organizational design task force was put in place. We did, we started with a kind of strategy review, what have we accomplished over the last number of years. Where are we strong? Where are we not? What problems are we seeing that need to be solved? That kind of thing. That went to an organizational design task force. They came out with some preliminary ideas, but one of the best things they did was a survey and we had I'd say over 3,000 responses. And so, you had a fair amount of data, and it was around this idea of what is going well, what is not, what needs to change, what do you see lacking, what needs more attention. [00:13:48] Andrea Buczynski: And so, we got that back and we realized, okay we need fresh direction.  We need to reinvigorate people in some ways around the work that the Lord is calling us to do over this next time. And then I think it was a presidential decision to just go ahead with it. We had to go to the board because of the size of it. But the structure finally came back after two more iterations with two different groups of leaders. So, we had an onboarding thing for anybody coming into global leadership. We used that group to say, okay here's the results of these questions. [00:14:29] Andrea Buczynski: What do you think are the themes that are emerging from this data? We gave them the raw data and they came back with here are the things you need to pay attention to. We did the similar thing with a group of probably 40 to 50 international leaders more at the country level who came in for an emerging leader initiative and okay, these are the themes. How would you solve them? Okay. And listen to, I think five or six groups of presentations. So, we took all that under advisement, and came back with a structure. Our president defined strategic intent, whereas we need to go in the next 10 years and or in the next years, let's say. [00:15:17] Andrea Buczynski: And we determined a launch date and that was 14 months out from when I was charged with doing the people care task force. Eliminating the level enabled the key stakeholders, geography, strategy, and capacity to sit on the same team and work out our differences on that team, rather than in opposition to one another and blocking. So, it made for a much more collaborative leadership environment and, our muscle memory on the old system is having to be worked out of our system and gaining new habits and stuff like that. It's moving forward and at the same time you look at it and you go it has its own challenges like any structure does. [00:16:15] Tommy Thomas: And I'm going to draw a blank on his name but our friend, Dan, who with Cru is leading your multi organizational initiative on every campus. [00:16:23] Andrea Buczynski: Dan Allen. [00:16:24] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, Dan Allen. I keep up with Dan and some of the folks at InterVarsity and other groups. Tell me how that's going. I'm just such a huge fan of organizational collaboration of not having to always invent it here, wherever here is, have you observed that in any thoughts as sitting back at your desk and watching that work? [00:16:48] Andrea Buczynski: I just look at it and I'm struggling for the word because I think it's emerged from what used to be a competitive environment where we're a little bit more mission focused and a little less role focused, or individual organization focus like kingdom focus. How do we live out a kingdom perspective where we're not tunnel vision on our own organization, but we're looking at what God is doing and where are the opportunities for bigger synergies than what we're seeing right now. So, the initiative with Dan and Every Campus Partnership is just a huge example of that. [00:17:27] Andrea Buczynski: But there's also para church roundtables that exist in technology. In leader development in HR. I think in the finance side as well that has been going on for more than a decade. So that kind of shared environment. How are you dealing with this kind of thing helps us all grow. The other thing I'm involved with is Christian Leadership Alliance. But what I love about that is we have this community hubs on Christian Leadership Alliance, and I'm part of the People Care one, and it gets populated with questions, every other week, and people will weigh in do you, have you used this, can you tell me anything about it, or do you have this, or, can you share a form or a task list or something like that where people are helping one another. [00:18:25] Andrea Buczynski: I look at it and I go Steve Douglas, our late president used to say, we can give away what God has given to us because he will give us whatever we need. And so, we don't have to be super protective about it. It's going to benefit the kingdom. Then how do we look at it? I like that change. I feel like it's been a shift in the body of Christ over the last 10 or 20 years. It's been a good one. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:18:55] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close and I'll ask you, I framed this a lightning round. I'm not sure that they're always lightning round kind of questions, but let's hit a few of them. What do you understand about your life today that you didn't understand a year ago? [00:19:11] Andrea Buczynski: Maybe it's my age or the fact that I've experienced some losses, the fact that the past few years, every day is a gift. [00:19:20] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back and tell a younger version of yourself, one thing, what would it be? [00:19:28] Andrea Buczynski: Don't be intimidated. Everybody's figuring it out. Nobody knows what they're doing. [00:19:36] Tommy Thomas: If you're sitting beside a total stranger at a dinner party, how do you engage them in a meaningful conversation? [00:19:42] Andrea Buczynski: It would probably depend on the person and, how we know each other, but part of it if it's a total stranger, it would just be tell me a little bit about yourself and what is it you enjoy most about what you do and go from there. [00:19:58] Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them only one question, who would it be and what would the question be? [00:20:21] Andrea Buczynski: This is what's coming to mind right now. I would just say, I would want to ask Jesus, what was it like to sit at the table with the person that you knew would betray you, and that you knew would deny you? And wash their feet.  What was that like?  Yeah. I'm curious. [00:20:49] Tommy Thomas:  Anything that as we wrap it up you think back over what we've covered and I always tell my guests, treat this as if you had the podium at a nonprofit gathering, and you had a group of budding nonprofit leaders. Anything you would share as a closing comment? [00:21:15] Andrea Buczynski: Yes. I'd say, your heart matters. What's going on in your relationship with the Lord, what's going on in your character, who you are is more important than what you do. If people know you love them, they will give you a lot of grace. And so, I just look at it and I go, what kind of person do I want to show up as today? And do your best if you're believer to represent the Lord and to come with every resource He's given you. And if not, to go, can you be the person whose life is integrous, lives with integrity, do what you say you will do, mean what you say what you mean, keep your promises. ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:22:08] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com   Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:00] Andrea Buczynski: I don't mind doing some thought work by myself. But there's nothing like getting in a room with people who want to go to the same place, and to be able to put ideas out there, bat them around. And then it might be the same group of people, but it also might be a different group of people that comes in and says here's what it's going to take to do it. It resonates with me with the body of Christ that we all have a part to play and God's created us uniquely and we need others to bring the best out of each other. We build each other up when we're in that process. And the team that's working well together will be more brilliant than any individual player. Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Andrea Buczynski. Andrea enjoyed a long and storied career with Cru. She took her undergraduate degree from Penn State. At Cru, she's known as a catalyst for transformation, seeking innovative solutions and addressing challenges and creating lasting impact. Her most recent leadership responsibility at Cru was Global Vice President for Leadership Development and Human Resources. Andrea, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:15] Andrea Buczynski: Thank you so much, Tommy. I'm glad to be here with you today. [00:01:18] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, people always want to know, how do we get these guests? And yours is a typical story. In my business, in the search business, anytime I'm looking for a CEO, at least one way to build the pool is to call a bunch of people, describe the job you've got and say, now if you were doing the search who would you get? And if you make eight or ten of those calls generally, you'll begin to see three- or four-people's names rise to the top and you might think I need to talk to these people. In your case, about a year ago, year and a half ago, I was interviewing your colleagues Barry and Dee Dee Rush and Bob Tiede. At the end of that conversation I said, now y'all been through this. It wasn't quite like a root canal. Who would you recommend? And your name came out of Barry and Dee Dee immediately. [00:02:04] Tommy Thomas: So then earlier this year, I was talking to our mutual friend, DeeDee Wilson, from InterVarsity and she says, who else have you got in the queue? And I began to tell her, and she says, you need to talk to Andrea. I said, okay. And then a little bit later, I was talking to Judy Douglas and Judy says who else are you interviewing?  And I told her, and she says, have you spoke to Andrea yet? And I said no but that's probably a sign. I'm excited about this. Before we dig too deep into your professional background, I always like to know a little bit about somebody's childhood and maybe a few of the things that brought them to where they are today. [00:02:40] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a couple of particular remembrances of childhood? [00:02:44] Andrea Buczynski: I grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania in a small town that was full of families who had immigrated to the U.S. which included my grandparents. And we grew up in what I'd call a front porch community, where everybody sat on the front porch and knew one another, and all of my grade school teachers lived within about five blocks of our home. And so, there was this sense of you're part of a community. If you actually did something naughty, chances are your mom would know about it before you got home. Somebody would be on the way or able to correct you. We also lived just a couple doors down from the church we went to, which was a big influence in my life. I'm the oldest of six. And so, growing up, sharing was a common struggle and was what made the family experience rich as it was. [00:03:43] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in your town? [00:03:47] Andrea Buczynski:   By the time I got to high school, we had a consolidated district. You went from that class of maybe 30 or 60 to class of, let's say 270, something like that. Andrea Buczynski: It was just a different experience. What I enjoyed a lot was the kinds of activities that you got to do stuff together. Glee Club, Choir, Band, Marching Band, Color Guard, where you're having to actually work together to accomplish a result. When I look back on it, there was a lot that I really enjoyed. So, like any high school, if you've got your cliques, you've got all your athletic teams and stuff like that, that makes for kind of a rich experience. [00:04:37] Tommy Thomas: So back then, what did you want to be when you grew up? [00:04:41] Andrea Buczynski: I don't know that it emerged right away, but when I was a junior in high school, I had a really awesome chemistry teacher. And it was known to be a tough class. And so, I was prepared for the challenge of it, but I was fascinated by the fact that you could figure out what things were made of and what they could do. And he had a really good way of showing films about the practical applications of the chemical reactions we were studying. And so, I found myself really leaning toward being a research chemist. And that's what was my intention when I headed to Penn State. [00:05:26] Tommy Thomas: Did you follow through with that? [00:05:29] Andrea Buczynski: Not so much. Somewhere in my college years, the Lord got a hold of my heart in a big way. And as I considered what I was going to do I think by that time I was already active in ministry with Cru. And I was just loving helping people walk with the Lord and come to know him personally. I was also doing individual study with my supervisor that got my, what do you call that? With your college advisor and realize what life in a chem lab would be like. And as much as I enjoyed it, the big aha I had about myself, Tommy, was that I'm an all-in kind of person, so whatever I'm pursuing I want to get to that problem. [00:06:20] Andrea Buczynski: I want to get to the solution. So, I'd find myself thinking about the chemistry while I was actually talking to people about other things at night. And I thought, whatever I have to do, I'm not going to have any bandwidth to do something on the side. If I was thinking I'm going to come home from work and do ministry, I'm not wired that way, so I realized it would be all in on something. And then the Lord began to speak to me through the gospel of Luke, follow me. And there you have it. [00:06:55] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:07:01] Andrea Buczynski: That I was maybe a church organist for seven years through high school and played the organ at the church down the street for me. And then at another one across the river. And yeah, I'm both organ and piano, I have a piano here. And so sometimes people are surprised by that, like the music theme that kind of runs through my life. ++++++++++++++++ [00:07:30] Tommy Thomas: So, you joined the Cru staff and sooner or later you had people reporting to you.  What do you remember about that first, we'll call it management experience? [00:07:45] Andrea Buczynski: I'd say the first memory is being a little bit overwhelmed at thinking about what I was actually responsible for. And one of the beautiful things that happened was I ended up working with a guy who as we were leading the team together, who had been a rookie the year before. And he just looked at me at our first meeting and he goes, look, I know what it feels like to be new because I'm only a year further along. And he goes, so there's plenty of grace for it for you coming into this role. And we'll just take it one thing at a time, but I'm. I'm not going to sit here and say the bar is high and all that jazz. He goes, I understand what you're going through. And so when you have a colleague like that who's a brother in the Lord, who's looking at you with empathy and a lot of grace, it makes for a relatively easy transition. [00:08:49] Tommy Thomas: Would you have called him a mentor or a peer leader? [00:08:53] Andrea Buczynski: I'd say, we were roughly the same age, so it's more of a peer but what he demonstrated, I think, was just the kind of empathy and understanding of what a new leader goes through and made it just an easy transition. The first time I actually led a team by myself, Tommy, was when I took this role as Global Vice President. And so up until then, every role I had been in was a shared leadership. A partner kind of role and in that case when I stepped in, I was like wow, there's a lot more to this, when you're carrying that load by yourself and what made that somewhat daunting, are we doing the right things? Are we making decisions in the right places? What was helpful in that situation was I had a couple of guys on my team, Barry was one of them who would look at what needs to be done. And let's go be super supportive and big cheerleaders along the way. [00:10:02] Tommy Thomas:  If I could back when you came onto that job, so you've been in there about a year or so, and I could have been invited to a staff meeting and we dismissed you and I asked your staff, what was the most exciting thing about working for you? What do you think they would have said? [00:10:21] Andrea Buczynski: We're headed somewhere. [00:10:23] Tommy Thomas: And what would have been the most daunting thing about working for you or challenging? [00:10:31] Andrea Buczynski: You remember when I said I'm all in on stuff, so if I'm like mentally engrossed in a problem-solving kind of thing both these guys could tell at a glance whether I could really hear something that they wanted to bring to my attention that day. So, I think, is Andrea able to engage on this thing right now and I got that feedback from that and I was surprised. But I thought, it's true, it was one of the better pieces of feedback that I got. I can tell if you're ready to engage, or if you have something else on your mind, that's going to eclipse what I'm talking to you about. [00:11:12] Tommy Thomas:  As you've come through Cru, how have you learned to identify what's a good leadership role for you? [00:11:20] Andrea Buczynski: If you're familiar with Cru, placement when I came on staff was not a negotiable thing. When you were assigned, it made you, A, flexible, and B, adapting to different leadership styles or leadership situations. But the ones I enjoy the most are the ones where there's a really committed team. And that idea that together we're going somewhere and there's more that we can accomplish together than we can accomplish individually. One of my assignments was at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, and you might recognize this name. Dick Bennett was the coach. He went on to coach at Madison, Wisconsin. But he was a strong believer. And when he talked about basketball, it was the pure, the whole team plays. There's not an individual star. And I love listening to him for that, just for that analogy, because I thought that is good teamwork. And I love that kind of situation where you're making the best out of each other's strengths and seeing who else you might need if the team itself was weak in it. [00:12:40] Andrea Buczynski: So, I like that. And I also like to have someone to report to who is both accessible and supportive, so if I have something I want it. Think about it, it's not going to take me a month to get a meeting. [00:12:54] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. At what point in your career did you begin to feel comfortable in your leadership skin? [00:13:03] Andrea Buczynski: I'd say the last five years. Okay. Later along the line than you might think. And at some of that, I think it's just because the scale of what you're looking at in global leadership development and HR in Cru is pretty extensive. And the number of stakeholders. And could feel off balance for a variety of reasons. Most of my experience on the ministry side was in the US so understanding the lay of the land on other continents and what the impact of decisions that we were considering would be in those places was not necessarily something I felt comfortable in until yeah, I would say maybe seven years ago, but in the last 10 for sure. [00:13:54] Tommy Thomas: Going back to your team. What's the most effective team building exercise that you found to use? [00:14:02] Andrea Buczynski: This might be pretty basic, but other than taking some time to hear one another's histories and life experiences, the process of team formation is one of the best team building things that I think you could do. And those would be simple things like how do we want to treat each other? What are norms? Developing team norms and then taking the team through some kind of strategic planning process. What is it that you know, from our current reality? Where do we want to head? So doing those processes are kind of work processes, but it's what enables a team to see the big picture of what needs to happen. They understand the rationale they're participating in the decision making around what are we going to do? And how are we going to do it? And who are we going to be to each other? [00:14:59] Andrea Buczynski: And then I would say from then, it's just the continuous improvement, let's evaluate how it went. It's always fun. We love assessments, try to find out a little more insight about who you are. And so, I won't discount those because they give insight. But when I think about what really helps a team gel, it is knowing that we're going to the same place, we've agreed on who's doing what, we know the processes we'll engage in, we know our obligations toward one another, those kinds of things make for a good team experience. [00:15:32] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken with your team? [00:15:42] Andrea Buczynski: That's a tough question because we've had some good ones along the way, but I will say the most recent restructure my team was responsible for designing a process to care for 680 staff whose jobs would be eliminated because we were taking a level of the organization out. So how would we care for those people in transition? What help would we provide in finding a new assignment? Because we didn't want to lose them. They were all great people. It's just that we were going into a different structure, and we needed to be able to evaluate the role that might be best for them. So, you can imagine if you have those folks, many of them serving overseas in international assignments, moving in a family, or the way something was going to be structured now isn't going to fit exactly what they were doing. So that one and thrown in with that was a global leadership conference to celebrate the past 10 years, all in one package. [00:16:52] Andrea Buczynski: So different parts of my team participated in that, but the people care part was a multinational task force. I think eight to 10 original participants grew into something around maybe 100 to 150, if you include the conference. [00:17:15] Tommy Thomas: Now, was this done face to face, or was this all through via zoom?  This is probably a pandemic (ish) timeframe. [00:17:22] Andrea Buczynski: It was exactly. It was during the pandemic. And so, we did everything by zoom, even the Global Leadership Conference, three mornings, three hours each morning and working out a design that would somehow enable us to celebrate and to lament because all of us were in different situations and many people had lost family or friends. And then to anticipate what the Lord might want to do the next 10 years as we go forward. And it was an amazing time going, how do you do this in a relatively short amount of time? I think we had somewhere between 1,000 to 1,500 people participate online. Which was just an amazing thing. [00:18:09] Andrea Buczynski: I cried. I'm just watching people populate the chat high from this country, high from that country, coming in, in different languages. It gives me chills even thinking about it as I'm telling you about it, because it was such a work of God, how that, you know that team was different from the People Care Task Force. I had never led a conference planning team. And we got to a point where we had the design in place. And I didn't know what to do. And I got an email from one of my fellow VPs who said, there's a woman on my team who led the biggest staff conference in a certain part of the world. And I'd like to make her available to you. [00:18:58] Andrea Buczynski: And I called her that afternoon. And said I'm stuck. Like we have the design, and it turns out her husband was on my team, but I didn't realize he had program director experience. He was reporting to someone else on my team. And the two of them got on zoom with me and they said, let us look at what you have, and we'll come back with recommendations tomorrow. And the next day they came back, and they said, here's what needs to happen. And it said, the composition of the meetings needs to change. It needs to go to the production team now. And they said, do you really want us to lead this? And I was like, yes, I'm happy to be in the meeting, but I have no bandwidth. [00:19:41] Andrea Buczynski: Like to set an agenda for another set of meetings. And that was about four weeks out from the conference. Maybe three. And Tommy, it went off without a hitch. It was a beautiful experience of the provision of God, people operating in their giftedness. And all of this was happening. We had people on the team from Singapore, from Paris, the U.S. A couple of other places that I can't think of right now. But it was, that same kind of multinational over distance. How can we do this? Let's figure it out kind of situation. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:20:25] Tommy Thomas: Thinking about the pandemic and hopefully we're through it for the most part, from a leadership lesson perspective, what do you think maybe you and your team learned that's worth taking forward? [00:20:41] Andrea Buczynski: That's a great question. There's probably a couple of things. One is, Zoom showed us we were pretty reliant on face-to-face meetings to get anything done. And it slowed any kind of corrective action. If you're dependent on face to face, it takes six months to a year to plan a multinational meeting of any size and to get people there, budgets and all of that. Suddenly, we went, oh my goodness, there's another way to do this. We had to use Skype, but it was difficult in some cases and the efficiency of zoom was amazing. So, it changed the way we thought about how to do things. It gave people some bandwidth. If you didn't have little kids at home, it wasn't so hard for singles, the isolation was challenging. [00:21:45] Andrea Buczynski: And when you think about it changed, it actually affected my view of remote work and for whom will it be a challenge and for whom will it make life easier? In some ways. So, when you have some discretion about, how to use your time, I've never been one for, let's say, punching an office clock, although I like having an office, but it's my point of view has been if people are doing the work, I'm not going to count the hours that they're spending doing it. So, that was never a problem with me, but certain conditions for remote work. You have to have a place where you can be undistracted, or work without interruption. You just, all of those funny videos about kids or pets, coming into the meeting. You can live with them, but it's not good for an ongoing situation. [00:22:41] Andrea Buczynski: The other thing I would say was it actually prepared us for the kind of structure that we have now because we're more highly dependent on tools like zoom and then shared like a shared Google drive. Like, all those things have changed the way we get work done and the pandemic was like proof positive of that. Could we do work in a sort of asynchronous way and be together when we need to be together and move things forward? And then I'd say the third part would be there's nothing that replaces face to face contact. [00:23:18] Andrea Buczynski: So, I had a big birthday during the first year of the pandemic, and I'd been at home for two months by myself and I was sitting in this office, and I looked out the window and I could see people from my team emerging from cars. And what are they doing here? My assistant convened a birthday party. So, they were setting out chairs that were six feet apart from each other in the parking lot. And she went and got a couple dozen donuts. And they're singing happy birthday to me out in the parking lot of my condo complex. It was one of the kindest and most touching things looking at it, just, I'll never forget it. [00:24:02] Tommy Thomas: There's that fine line between nothing that can replace face to face contact with the economies that you get through technology. And I think that's a balance that we'll carry forward now that we've had to go through it. [00:24:18] Andrea Buczynski: Yeah, we're highly dependent on those economies right now. [00:24:21] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, you referenced Dick Bennett and basketball. One of my previous podcast guests was David Chadwick, who played for Dean Smith at Chapel Hill, and he wrote a book called It's How You Play the Game, the 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith, and one of his quotes was the concept of team may be Coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball leadership and society. [00:24:47] Tommy Thomas: Obviously, you work with a lot of teams, and you may have already answered this, but how does that work? The concept of team impacted you. [00:24:57] Andrea Buczynski: I love it. I don't mind doing some thought work by myself. But there's nothing like getting in a room with people who want to go to the same place, and to be able to put ideas out there, bat them around. And then it might be the same group of people, but it also might be a different group of people that comes in and says here's what it's going to take to do it. I just look at it and go, when it resonates with me with the body of Christ that we, that we all have a part to play, and God's created us uniquely and we need others to bring the best out of each other. We build each other up when we're in that process. And the team that's working well together will be more brilliant than any individual player and that was Dick Bennett I'm sure that was Dean Smith when you and others other coaches who do team really well realize that, and you go the team can accomplish more than the individuals can accomplish when the team is leveraged to do their best. [00:26:06] Tommy Thomas: So, you would probably subscribe to this quote, A group is a bunch of people in an elevator.  A team is a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator is broken. [00:26:21] Andrea Buczynski: Yes, teamwork will emerge pretty quickly in that case, right? [00:26:26] Tommy Thomas: Join us again next week as we continue this conversation with Andrea Buczynski. Andrea shares a bit about the empowering world of Arete - The Executive Women of Influence and the wisdom that emerges when high achieving women come together in a spirit of confidentiality, shared values, and ethical leadership. We'll also be discussing whether the availability and abundance separate from my shin has impacted organizational leadership and how she, as a non-digital native has learned to thrive in this environment. Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com   Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Tommy Thomas: Today we continue our dialogue with Larry O'Nan that we began last week. Before delving into that conversation, I'd like to share some reflections that have emerged after revisiting our episode a few times. As the one handling post-production duties for this podcast, I typically listen during the edit for technical nuances and formatting concerns, rather than immersing myself in the content. However, I get a second chance to absorb the discussions when I tune in via my podcast app. This usually occurs on Saturday mornings during my long bicycle rides. Alongside other favorite podcasts like Alan Alda's Clear and Vivid, previous Tennessee governor's Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam's You Might Be Right, Tia Brown's One Question Leadership Podcast, Far East Broadcasting Company's weekly update and other enriching podcasts. During one such ride last week as Larry recounted the early days of Fund Development with Cru, my mind traveled back to 1974 to those nascent beginnings. As a young 23-year-old joining the Crusade staff, my prior fundraising experience had been limited to helping a friend with a critical medical procedure. While this endeavor proved fruitful, it primarily relied on contributions from close acquaintances. Under Larry's guidance, alongside a small team of field reps, I unwittingly became a part of Campus Crusade's foundational efforts in Fund Development. Back then, not only were we tasked with raising our own personal support, but we were instrumental in pioneering the organization's approach to securing substantial funding for specific projects. My tenure with Larry proved to be a master class in various aspects of life and fundraising. From time management strategies to maximizing air travel budgets. And even cultivating relationships with affluent donors predominantly in their senior years. Those lessons were invaluable. Little did we know that we would be trailblazers in Campus Crusade's fundraising efforts, contributing to the trajectory of Larry's enduring career. Looking back, I'm deeply grateful for those formative years and the profound insights into both fundraising in life that Larry had parted to me. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:02:40] Tommy Thomas: Take me into your new book, Intentional Living and Giving. What was the genesis of that? [00:02:48] Larry O'Nan: The genesis came back from this study when I was assigned the job of writing to come up with Stewardship Theology. I did another book in the mid 80s called Giving Yourself Away, and in many respects, this is a revision of that, although it's a totally different package, but it was still basically all the same core theology. And a few years ago, I was in Ireland for an event, And some people in Britain were saying there's nothing that's really distinctive that we know about this, simple to understand about what stewardship's about, because there's a lot of misconceptions out there. And there's a lot of traditions that would get in their way. [00:03:30] Larry O'Nan: In Great Britain, years ago there was a guy there that started orphanages. And he had about 300 kids in the orphanages in Bristol. And as he was working with these kids, he was a great marketer, but he was known for praying things in. So, he'd go into his closet and pray. And then people decided that his style of raising funds was the way they would adapt. So, they would say we're not going to ask for money. We're going to go pray for it. What they don't tell you is the story of how well he was at marketing where the kids were living. And everybody knew where he was located, and he was out all the time talking about the kids in need. [00:04:13] Larry O'Nan: So, you'll find that story. And there are some people who say we should never ask for anything. God is the one that provides. We're not going to go that route. So, there's a lot of skewed ideas of what this all means. The book itself, Intentional Living and Giving, is a recap of everything. So, the first nine chapters are the Theology of Stewardship, and then the latter nine chapters are how do you practically apply this in your life. So, we unpack what God's role for man was and what we do, how we respond, how we act, what we should be doing. And then the latter part is here's some very practical things that will help you be successful. And out of the whole book, there's one chapter because everybody expects a book on stewardship to be about money. [00:05:01] Larry O'Nan:  I dedicated one chapter to talk about what money is and how it works and what tithing is and some of those things. But that's one chapter out of 17 chapters. And I really say this is one thing you can give, but there's a hundred other things you can give as well. What are you doing in stewardship? Not what are you doing with your money? And so the book itself is, what I discovered, there's people out there, Tommy, I remember a lady about a decade ago, she was probably in her 60s, maybe 65, and she had tears in her eyes. The context was she'd been married to a pastor, and they'd gone through a divorce, so that was a mess up. [00:05:40] Larry O'Nan: They had been in ministry for years and years. She raised a family of a couple of kids. And her tears in her eyes was I never have figured out my purpose in life. Why did God put me here in the first place? And I thought for 65, you just missed some of the great joy because he was very clear giving you assignments and work. You just didn't know what day you were a steward. So, she really was fulfilling a stewardship, and everybody knew about it, but she was miserable because it wasn't articulated to her that you are doing what God called you to do.  I think of that lady every once in a while, and I think, boy, if more people understood how they could be a steward and practically implement stewardship in their life, they could go from confusion and fear to thriving and abundant contentment. [00:06:30] Larry O'Nan: And that's what I'm really trying to help people get is I'm trying to help you free yourself up from the confusion and the fear that you probably are living with to wonder if you're doing what God led you to do. Why am I here in the first place? What's all about a life that says I'm thriving? I have an abundance. Nothing about money there, just the abundance of life, and I can be content. So, the book is really unpacking that for the average Christian. I wrote it as much for the international side as I did the American side, but it's a universal challenge that's out there, and that's why the book is you know, on its way out the door. I'm just trying to help people get free so they can thrive. That's what it's all about. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:15] Tommy Thomas: Early in your career, and then you took a break from it, and I think now you're back at it, but tell our listeners a little bit about your Andy Ant series. [00:07:24] Larry O'Nan:  I'm a dad. I have two daughters. My oldest daughter was three years of age, and the other one was just coming along. She's about three years younger. One night, Carrie, I read her stories every night when I was home, and I would put her to bed after reading her a kid story. And one night she said, Daddy, I don't want you to read me a story. And I did. I thought this is weird. She says, I want you to tell me a story. [00:07:53] Larry O'Nan: And so I laid down her book that I was going to read to her, and I laid there in bed for a minute, and I said, once upon a time, there was an ant, because I was remembering the book of Proverbs, it said, watch the ant, learn of his ways, my definition is, though he's tiny, he's mighty in many ways, we can learn a lot from ants, how they store, how they work. The diligence, the way they work together in cooperation. I've got a 300-page book on ants, believe it or not. I didn't write it, but the guy did his doctoral thesis on ants. And I thought that's an interesting one. But anyway, I started telling my daughter stories and they were really just stories about her and the life she lived about this little character. [00:08:34] Larry O'Nan: And I named him Andy. And she liked Andy Ant. So many nights it would be tell me an Andy Ant story. Now, the Andy Ant stories that are out today, my brother is the author of all the books. We did collaborate on the concept, but he's an attorney in Denver. And I said if you will work on the storylines the way you see him, I'll try to work on the marketing and getting the stories out there and their books for three- to 10-year-old kids. They are the day in the life of a little boy that I didn't create. My brother is basically Joseph Tyler Johnson, the main character. But I, in my world of Andy Ant, it was what Carrie was doing outside and how the ants interrupted her life. And then Jessica came along, and the same thing happened. So, the environment there was learning from the ants and learning principles of daily living in a fun way without being religious. [00:09:32] Larry O'Nan: I wasn't trying to make him memorize verses at that time of day. What did I learn? Andy would play baseball because Carrie had a baseball bat and she played out in the backyard and tried to hit the ball. Andy started hitting the balls in the grass. So, it was crazy. It made no sense. And if for 10 years, Andy existed between Jessica and Carrie and myself, the life came when my brother got involved and created it. We eventually got a former Disney artist who had worked for 21 years for Walt Disney personally, and he did all of the illustrations. So, if you see the Andy Ant work today, there's eight books in the series. [00:10:13] Larry O'Nan: It looks like what you would call Disney evergreen art because it was created by one of the Disney evergreen artists, and he did that. He spent two years of his life working with us on the entire series. He's no longer living, but that's the story of how we got the stories going. So that is out there for kids that really, there's a stewardship element to it because I have trouble giving up on Andy because I'm a steward of Andy. So, I got to take care of this crazy ant. Because that's a responsibility that God gave me. But it's incidental to the other story of really helping people thrive. I'm much more motivated to help you and other people that you might know or other adults. God's really got a purpose. I want you to thrive and do all that God led you to do. [00:11:07] Larry O'Nan: And if I'm doing that and you're doing that, we're going to get along fine. Life will be better for both of us. Yeah. ++++++++++++++++ [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned you just returned from Spain. Are there cultural differences in the way a Latin population would see stewardship or an Eastern European population or does it transcend? [00:11:29] Larry O'Nan: It transcends. I started working with the guy that created this environment that I was a part of. It was the guy that I've mentored for 40 years. And I started training him. He picked up on it. There's another guy in Switzerland that has taken it even further. One of them got into helping missionaries raise their own personal support called Ministry Partner Development. And this conference was centered around helping missionaries do that. Now, I probably met less than a half a dozen Americans there. Everybody else was European. There were 20 countries involved. I met four people from Ukraine. There were people from the Baltic states, across France, Spain, everywhere else. [00:12:13] Larry O'Nan: Some of them were with organizations that you would recognize, but they were the European expression. So Young Life and Navigators and Operation Mobilization and Youth of the Mission were all there. So was Agape Europe, which is the Cru expression of Campus Crusade. But I'd say two thirds of the organizations, I couldn't even figure out how to pronounce their names. They were unique organizations to the culture. Some of them were humanitarian, camping, evangelism, church planting, church growth. And they were all equipped with how they could raise financial support as missionaries within their culture with nobody ever leaving their culture to raise the funding that they need because they're raising money in Spain, in France, in Germany, in Switzerland, in the Netherlands, in Great Britain, in Ukraine, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Poland. [00:13:10] Larry O'Nan: They're racing the same kind of a thing that you and I would have done, in the seventies with Cru is being done over and over again. And it's not a Cru thing. It's their own unique thing. Everybody that was at that conference was volunteering their time to help others. It was not sponsored by an organization. It was sponsored by a network. And they came together to help, and they keep on training people how to do it. And they're helping the nationals be successful in it. Spain's a unique country. Years ago, when I first went there, probably 40 years ago, I was told over and over again, you can never raise money in the country of Spain. [00:13:53] Larry O'Nan: It's impossible because we don't have the money here. And this guy that was telling me that over and over was making sure that we weren't going to mess up his plan. The Lord took him home. He's probably been gone about five or six years. The generation that came after him learned about what we're talking about in terms of fund development and just said we do not want to be dependent on money from outside of Europe. [00:14:20] Larry O'Nan: We don't want to be dependent on money outside of Spain. And so, this ministry is 100 percent funded now by Spanish funds, and comes in through the Spanish structure. They rarely get any money outside of Spain and rarely any from the United States. That doesn't mean that we don't encourage that when it's available. But it's very unhealthy when an organization becomes codependent on somebody else just to make them work. And the entire European structure is trying to say we do not need funding from the West, i.e. the United States. I say if people want to be generous and help you, accept it.  [00:15:01] Larry O'Nan: But to say that we cannot survive as an organization because we don't have funding from the U.S. They think it is wrong and they need to be responsible. The principle is that every place in the world, God's landed his people and he's got money everywhere. And it's all his. So, let's go find it and let's work with the partners that are there. And if you look at any part of scripture, in fact, the principles that we teach on stewardship came out of the Middle East. They didn't come out of America. These are all biblical principles that came out of a period of time of the Old and New Testament. So, it works as well there. It takes some time, and it takes, I find that sometimes leadership of their organizations is the number one liability to doing it right because they're assigning somebody else to go raise it, but they don't want to go through the pain or the refocus of their attention to do it right. [00:15:58] Larry O'Nan: When I was over in Spain last week, I was saying, get you copies of Intentional Living and Giving, get the dialogue going with your leadership and your board. Because if they're with you, you can thrive as an organization. If they're not with you in this philosophy or theology you're going to be having struggles all the time because they're going to want money faster than the development process will get it to them. Even there, and the book will work there, and it's all in English right now, that's the way the books start typically, if an English person writes it. But I would anticipate in the next two or three years, we'll be in half a dozen languages that will be relevant to the mainstream. You can have about eight languages in the world and be into the marketplace, any place in the world. [00:16:44] Larry O'Nan: Yeah, there's 2000 languages, but those are heart languages. And the economy works in about eight languages. The world economy is there. That's where we're at. And these people, yes, the entire conference in Spain was English. But when they read scripture, they would read it in five languages because somebody in that room knew one of those five languages. So, that's what it was. And it was the generation Z and maybe millennials that were leading the conference. I never spoke once. I just spent a lot of time interacting with the participants there.  And I didn't need to speak because they were doing a better job at doing that than I could ever have done. And it is universal. It can work any place. Some of the largest funding for Christian enterprises currently happens in Asia, not in the United States. +++++++++++++++++ [00:17:37] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close. I want to ask you. I don't know that I like the word lightning round because you might want to take longer to answer than a lightning round might incur, but so I'll start with, if you could give a younger version of yourself, a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:17:56] Larry O'Nan: Don't be afraid to fail, work a plan or develop a plan and work the plan. Don't give up. [00:18:06] Tommy Thomas: If you could get a do over in life, what would it be? [00:18:13] Larry O'Nan: If I could do a do over? I probably would have gained understanding of stewardship earlier. I totally tripped over it. I think my life would have been a lot more fulfilled if I'd just known it a couple of decades earlier. [00:18:31] Tommy Thomas: How have you changed in the last five years? [00:18:36] Larry O'Nan: You got to go backoalmost 10 years on my change.  My wife died 10 years ago, and about nine years into that, I said, Okay, I'm very much alive and well and healthy. And I said, instead of retiring, I'm going to reboot and keep on going. That's been the radical changes to my fault. I take on more than I should. But if you have got a responsible bone in your body, you'll probably do that. And yeah, I think that people that quit on anything lose life. I see people retired, but I also see 40-year-olds that quit on a marriage or quit on their kids or quit on something else. I just think stick with it. That I was going to write a book some years back. I may still do something someday with it called The Curve. [00:19:33] Larry O'Nan: Because the only time you really grow is when you're in a crisis situation. And the book, The Curve, was about how you navigate the curves of life. And it's in the curve when you think it's the worst that you're probably going to grow the most. So, embrace the curve and realize that what comes out of the backside of it is going to make you a better person. [00:19:55] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anybody ever gave you? [00:20:00] Larry O'Nan: You have the freedom to fail.  I don't think I ever would have done what I did in my years that God gave me here so far if I did not embrace that and just go for it over and over again. I write it down every once in a while when I'm up against the wall. Larry, you have the freedom to fail. Go try it. [00:20:26] Tommy Thomas: It's been a wonderful conversation, Larry.  Thank you. It's good to catch up and we shouldn't wait this long to do it again. [00:20:34] Larry O'Nan: I should come out and someday we have to go out and see what's in your part of the world together. I have fond memories of working with you, Tommy. Fond memories. [00:20:42] Tommy Thomas: You're welcome on the Gulf Coast anytime you can catch an airplane ride down this way. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:20:47] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. ​​Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Larry O'Nan's Website  Larry O'Nan's Email: Larry@LarryONan.com  Intentional Living and Giving: Discovering Purpose, Igniting Abundance, and Thriving as a Steward of God's Blessing by Larry O'Nan The Adventures of Andy Ant: Lawn Mower On The Loose (MJ Kids; Adventure of Andy Ant) by Gerald O'Nan Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com  Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

[00:00:00] Larry O'Nan: We could have failed miserably, Tommy, but that was okay. I learned a long time ago, and even in the book that I've written, I did a foreword about the freedom to fail. And I was afraid to step out and do things, and I had a guy that I was working with, and he said, Larry, freedom to fail is what you've got. [00:00:19] Larry O'Nan: No one's ever done it before. Go ahead and step into it. All you can do is go back and do it again. If it doesn't work, then try something else. And freedom to fail never became a barrier to me. If this is not the way to do it, we'll figure it out later and tweak it and do it again. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:34] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Larry O'Nan, and Larry is a graduate of the University of Colorado. He and his wife, Pat, served on the staff of Cru, previously known as Campus Crusade for Christ, for 18 years. And during this time, Larry dedicated 13 years to developing and overseeing the accelerated growth of many fund development initiatives, resulting in more than 150 million raised for evangelism and development programs worldwide. I first met Larry in July of 1973. I had joined the staff of Campus Crusade and had been assigned to report to Larry. It's an immense pleasure to get to interview my first boss. Larry, Welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:20] Larry O'Nan: Tommy, it's so good to be with you. Thanks a lot for inviting me to dialogue with you a little bit today about all kinds of things. We've got a long history. [00:01:28] Tommy Thomas: We could go in a lot of directions. We could do a whole podcast on reminiscing about memories, but there was one that stuck in my mind. And I don't know if you remember or not.  It was the summer of ‘74 and Larry and I had traveled to Korea to attend this big conference, Expo 74, with a million and a half of our good friends. And after the conference, we traveled around Southeast Asia, but the leg of the trip that I remember was with the Philippines. And it was so hot, and it was so humid, I was raised in the south and I thought I knew what heat and humidity was, but they put a whole new definition on it over there. I remember we shared a bedroom that had two single beds and one oscillating fan. I can remember lying in my bed and that fan would hit me and then it would go away and it'd go over, swing over to Larry's side of the room, and hit him. And it'd go back and forth. And I thought, a lot of significant learning took place on that trip, but the heat and the humidity and that oscillating fan stick out in my memory, Larry. [00:02:34] Larry O'Nan: Oh, my goodness. And I was in the Philippines about two years ago. I chair a board of a nonprofit in the Philippines called Little Feet and Friends, and I was sharing a room with a Filipino pastor that was with me. And I was laying there thinking at least the last time I was here, it wasn't oscillating. I was actually in the only air-conditioned room on that entire compound. [00:03:00] Tommy Thomas:  Yeah, they get used to that heat over there. It's amazing. It is amazing. Before we dig too deep into your career and the books you've written and that kind of thing, I want to go back to your maybe to your childhood a little bit. Growing up in Colorado, what are two or three things that you remember most about your childhood? [00:03:18] Larry O'Nan: My father was a pastor in Western Colorado at the time. And Tommy, the things that stuck with my head the most was learning to do something from nothing. Dad was encouraging. I had a horse that was 36 inches tall, a Grand Canyon pony horse. And I learned to make money with that little rascal. He about killed me on a race, but I decided that I could take him to the richer part of my town. And for a quarter, I could get a kid to ride on the back of the horse and I could make more money in three hours as a 10- or 12-year-old than I could if I was doing anything else. So, learning to do something from nothing, taking an idea and creating something from it. And believe it or not, over and over again in my life, I've seen that same pattern kick into gear many times. Because too many times I was told to go do it, but there's no plan. [00:04:09] Tommy Thomas:   What was high school like in Western Colorado? [00:04:13] Larry O'Nan: Western Colorado is a unique area in that we were the major town between Denver and Salt Lake. And it was a rural community, but it was also a cosmopolitan mixing area. It was the largest city, and it was there that I got involved in theater a great deal. I knew I was going to become famous in the theater world for five years. Even into my junior year in college, I knew that's where I was aiming. I began not only liking the acting, but I really got into the directing and the back of the scene, what goes on behind to make a show work. Again, it was taking something from almost nothing and creating in six weeks, a full production of South Pacific or you name the shows that we did. We did a lot of major shows. [00:04:59] Larry O'Nan: And over again, when I was in high school, I started seeing that there was a need for some people to come in and do the backside of the curtain to make the front of the curtain actually work. And so I've enjoyed the backside of the curtain all my life and standing back in the back of a room, watching it happen when it goes off. So that was my high school days. From there, I went to university. And majored in theater up to my junior year in college when I decided I wanted to get out of that field and ended up with a double major in English education and was supposed to become a drama coach and a debate coach and an English teacher. And I never went that way. I went into full time ministry. [00:05:43] Tommy Thomas: What are people always surprised to find out about you? [00:05:47] Larry O'Nan: Oh, my goodness. What were they surprised to find out about me? Probably that I think it was a surprise to even me too, is that when I would make a commitment to do something, I later discovered I have a high degree of responsibility in my whole system, but I cannot give up on things. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it, and that's probably surprised me as much as it did them. But it would also bother me when things happen when people would not follow through. Because to me, everybody should have that same value. I discover people are different, but in defining what my strengths were, I really discovered one of those was maximizing the occasion, but the other one was a driving force to be responsible, to get it done. Even today. I've got to say no, because if I say yes, I'm caught with a responsibility to carry through and do something. [00:06:41] Tommy Thomas: What do you remember about the first time you had people reporting to you as a manager? [00:06:48] Larry O'Nan: When I was in my second year at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Campus Crusade in the Ivy League area, I was assigned a responsibility to have a music group come through the area. And they gave me 30 days of time with that group. And I decided if I was going to have them for 30 days and they were going to charge me by the day, I was going to get my money out of them. And I about killed the group because I started organizing people on every campus in five states to get ready for this group to come to town. And we did, I think 32 concerts in 30 days. They never told me not to do it. They just told me to schedule the group and I overscheduled them. But I had good teams on all these campuses, both Ivy League and state campuses and Christian colleges that were in that area. [00:07:38] Larry O'Nan: And I learned from that experience that people will do what you tell them to do if you lay out a clear plan and help them get there. So, to me, it's not about me getting the credit, it's about the people that I recruit to do the job where they own it. And then I can sit back and help them be successful at it. For years, that's the way I functioned. Now, later, I got into developing more people when I got into early fund development. There was only two of us who started off with a huge project that no one had any clue what to do about. But within 13 years, I had about 100 people and seven departments working for me. [00:08:18] Larry O'Nan: And again, it was more of a facilitator role and an encourager role that I saw my leadership to be not a one that went ahead and get it done. So even when I started writing books and doing other things, I developed teams that were working on those things and they had as much ownership on the project that I did, and they felt that ownership, I think, and it carried the whole program. So, to say I was really leading. Yeah, I was influenced, but I was more by encouraging them to go get the job done and help us get it done together. So that happened. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:08:54] Tommy Thomas: So, you were on the campus staff. How did you get over into fundraising? [00:09:02] Larry O'Nan: I almost tripped over that one. I did two years at the University of Pennsylvania. Then that music group came through. It was called the New Folk at the time. And when I killed them in 30 days, they asked me that summer, if I would move out of the campus ministry and had started advancing that Eastern United States group that had, I think, 30 states under its wing. And I started doing the advanced work and setting up all of their concerts for the next couple of years. And that led me into music. Eventually, after a number of years there, I put seven groups together for the Ministry of Crew and both Asia and Africa and Europe, and then a number of groups here in the United States. [00:09:44] Larry O'Nan: I found myself in 1972 out of a job, and I was asked by the then Senior Vice President of the organization if I would help him with a project and I took a brand-new staff guy into that room to say, what is the project? And he went to his hotel bathroom. He was headquartered in an old facility that had hotel rooms that were converted to offices. He pulled back the shower curtain. There were 28 boxes of pledge cards. Representing almost 2 million in pledges made by 80,000 students in Dallas, Texas earlier that summer.  It had been 90 days since those boxes had been touched. No one had a clue what was in them and the only responsibilities, could you take these boxes and see if you can convert them into commitments from the people that made these pledges. [00:10:36] Larry O'Nan: So, 90 days later, those 28 boxes started saying, this is what you call fund development. And I had no clue. No one was, there was no roadmap. There was nobody advising us. We just had to make it successful. And that got me into fund development. And little did I know that those 28 boxes would lead to a career that included 30 years of consulting with Christian nonprofits after that. It was a journey that I never expected, but it was using all my skill package. So, the way I did that job all those years was just leveraging my strengths and staying away from my weaknesses. [00:11:18] Tommy Thomas: So, I guess I didn't think about this back then. So, you were a year into this when I came along. [00:11:25] Larry O'Nan: I probably was about a year into it.  I think Tommy, you and I were heavily involved in the I Found It campaign, the Here's Life America campaign that was going on. That was one of those jobs I was assigned. This is before you got there, but it was basically we need to raise 12 to 15 million in the next two years. How are you going to do it? And again, there was no plan. There was no advice. There was nobody telling us what to do. I was working casually with a consulting firm out of New York, shared with them the challenge that was before me, and he helped me formulate a plan. And we raised about 12 million in 18 months. But it was going from zero. [00:12:09] Larry O'Nan: And I think you came into play through that process. And we recruited representatives to work across the United States. I think I had about 15 or 18 field reps. And we were training cities how to raise the money to accomplish their city objectives. So again, it was taking something from nothing, creating an idea, formulating a plan, and then working the plan. And that pattern is, I've done that over and over again over my years. So, you and I started when there was nobody telling us what to do. And those days it was a wing and a prayer and Tommy go get on an airplane and go do X. And if we had an hour or two or a day before, we would figure out what to do the next day and we'd go do it. [00:12:58] Larry O'Nan: We could have failed miserably, Tommy, but that was okay. I learned a long time ago, and even in the book that I've written, I did a foreword about the freedom to fail. And I was afraid to step out and do things, and I had a guy that I was working with, and he said, Larry, freedom to fail is what you've got. No one's ever done it before. Go ahead and step into it. All you can do is go back and do it again. If it doesn't work, then try something else. And freedom to fail never became a barrier to me. It became “if this is not the way to do it, we'll figure it out later and tweak it and do it again”. So that's how it started. [00:13:35] Larry O'Nan: And I ended up spending 13 years doing the ministry of Cru, and then I consulted with them for another 10 - 12 years beyond that. As one of my clients when I was doing the fund development, because at that time, I was specializing in major partner development, and we were doing a lot of other initiatives, and I worked with them. Just this last week, I was in Spain and repeated some of the same stuff that we did 45 years ago in Spain again, except not in the context of Cru now. But if what Cru gave birth to is a network of nonprofit Christian organizations, and in this case in Europe. They were jokingly calling me the great grandfather of this activity that I was attending, because I was there and the guys that I trained and equipped and mentored were there, and then the leadership that they had developed through their work were there, and we had about 150 people at that conference. From 20 countries, sitting in about 15 organizations. It's fun to watch it work because you can stand in the back of the room and say, my goodness, this really did work. [00:14:47] Tommy Thomas: Go back to failure for a minute. Why do you think most of us are afraid to fail? [00:14:54] Larry O'Nan: I think there's an expectation that failure is bad to begin with.  So, we hear the word failure, and we don't want to fail. But when you realize that if you don't have the freedom to fail, you may not take the risks that will take to get the job done.  I've seen people have never reached their maximum potential because they're stumbling about what would happen if it didn't work? And I had the same feeling when I first started these things, and nobody was there to walk beside me. And then when I realized that if you don't do it one way, you just roll up your sleeves and go try another way. Now, I believe that if you learn a pattern and then mess up too much on it, that needs to be corrected. [00:15:40] Larry O'Nan: But generally, I think most people are afraid to fail. In fact, my concern is that I watched the Z generation. I've got a 23-year-old grandson, and there's a lot of these kids that are really afraid to step out and be bold and do something. They're almost frozen because they could get whiplash and could really take them down. And their self-esteem, they don't want to fail. So, they won't do anything. They will end up taking no less of a job. They will not take the risks. And that's the sad part. I feel like we got to help people endorse failure. I looked at the Old Testament. Moses had a huge potential failure when he picked up two million people in Egypt to go across the desert and it took him 40 years to get there. [00:16:25] Larry O'Nan: But he figured out how to navigate that particular venue with all the problems they had. But I think God gives us the freedom to fail. I don't think God is up there with a big stick saying, I'm going to give you a lower grade because it didn't work out right. I think that the key to good leadership is giving people the freedom to fail. I just think a lot of young adults coming up today are almost frozen and maybe the expectation on them is not fair as well. [00:16:56] Tommy Thomas: So yeah, failure is tied into risk. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken? [00:17:05] Larry O'Nan: Probably stepping into some arenas where I knew the potential of it not succeeding was really great, but we had to do it anyway. I was involved with a dream of Dr. Bill Bright to see a billion dollars raised for the Great Commission and the amount of funding and the way we were going to go about doing it was petrifying. But if you didn't step out and test some of those ideas out, you never would have known they worked. At that time the only organizations in the U.S. that achieved a billion dollars of income of any kind was probably Harvard and Stanford. And we were in an evangelical nonprofit culture. And the idea of raising money that had never ever been raised before was just a big gulp. And it was a huge risk because the reputation hangs on the risk. Now, I was not the upfront guy. I was doing much more of the logistics. And making it happen, but it takes those kinds of people behind the scenes. You can have a good guy on the platform, but if he doesn't know what he's doing, it's going to crumble pretty fast. ++++++++++++++++ [00:18:22] Tommy Thomas:   What have you learned about resilience over the years? [00:18:27] Larry O'Nan: Keep at it. I think there's a tendency to if it doesn't work you get out of here. In fact, a few weeks ago, somebody said the frustration that I have with the young generation is that in fact, this was a tax guy. He said for most adults, they come in and they have a W2 form, or they have maybe two jobs, maybe three, if they're really getting entrepreneurial. He said the young generation is coming in with 10 or 12 W2 forms because they kept quitting and going to something else. He said they don't know where they're going because they don't stay long enough to figure out even what they're good at. And I think that is a reflection on our culture. But I'm still committed to trying to help people look at the longer term. [00:19:14] Larry O'Nan: My grandson just graduated from Biola University, and I said to him a few weeks ago, I said, now, the key thing is to stay at this job for 8, 10 weeks because his tendency is if this doesn't work, there's probably something over here that could work. Now he's not one to jump fast, but much of the culture jumps fast. So, to be on the job for two weeks and quit because you don't like the hours, you don't learn very much that way. Tommy, when you and I were doing what we were doing together, we were sticking through it for two or three years at a time, slugging up against all kinds of risks and all kinds of barriers.  And I think we had some good times, but we did not know where we were going. God seemed to be getting us there. [00:20:01] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, I'm thinking back. I don't ever remember thinking about quitting. It was hard at times. But we did have good times along the way. We had things to celebrate and for the most part we got there. I think we were a pretty good fundraising group, that group of 15 that you had together. And then the tour we took when I managed that music group, the Crossroads, when we brought them in from Asia and I think back. I don't think that I've thought about quitting, I don't have any kids or grandkids, so I'm probably not as tied to these next generations as a lot of my guests are. So I'm always interested in what you're seeing out there and in that context. [00:20:43] Larry O'Nan: We were doing that Tommy back in those days and I called it fundraising back then. Now I'm a consultant with funded up mode, but fundraising is really an exchange. It's I get something, and you get something. Unfortunately, that's what is going on in most of the activities. My direct mail stuff that I get from all kinds of political and non-political sources is offering me something in exchange for something else. Almost every one of them. If not, they're trying to lean on my emotion of what's going to happen to a kid if I don't send them money. So, it 's fundraising. Now I'm not anti-fundraising. I don't think it's sinful. It is manipulated to a great extent because if you use the right words and say the right things, you can bend a person to do something that they may not want to do. With fundraising there is also the concept of the donor. And our secular society has used that term very broadly. [00:21:45] Larry O'Nan: A donor is a person that gives blood, gets a needle in his arm, resists the fact that he had to do it, but sometimes does it for the higher cause of what the blood will do. And if he gets anything, it's a sugar cube or a cookie at the end of sitting there giving blood. I always cringed at fundraising and having donors because I felt like there was a higher calling and we were trying to get money. So even during the times that you were working with him, we were doing good fundraising. Yeah, but we were not yet into Fund Development. Fund development is the word. Development itself is steps and stages in growth and advancement. That means you have to take a person on a journey for them to see what they can do and what can happen together. [00:22:35] Larry O'Nan: And then when I really got into the Theology of Stewardship, I dismissed the word fundraising and donor completely from the vocabulary. We started calling them partners. We started using the word Fund Development, not fundraising.   We started seeing that the people that could give resources were equally involved in ministry, just as much as I was involved in ministry. [00:22:59] Larry O'Nan: I just had a different ministry. I was helping spend some of their money, and they were giving the money that God had entrusted to them. So, the radical change came in about 1978-79, when as a circumstance, I was assigned to figure out the Theology of Stewardship for Cru. They could say, knowing about Cru's history they must have had a very solid organization. It was a wing and a prayer with a visionary behind it. So, the visionary was a post war, and at that time, a handshake was as good as your word. So, the people in the ministry like Cru were doing it and it was relational development. I would say that true, but it really was a, I have no idea what I need next. [00:23:57] Larry O'Nan: But now if I figure out what I need next, I'll ask you again. So, there was some core concepts there, but there wasn't a fund development initiative or a strategy at that time. And I raised my personal support with minimal training and a prayer over me. That was about it. And that's the way you probably did. It was not until the late seventies when I was assigned and what had actually happened, Tommy, was I was invited to a meeting. I had been fairly successful with you and other strategies. We were raising funding, and I was invited to a meeting and the people that were in the meeting were higher up than I was. [00:24:39] Larry O'Nan: And I was probably one of about a dozen people in this room. And we had consultants advising the ministry on if it was even possible for a Christian ministry to raise a billion dollars. And they'd done the study, they'd done feasibility work, they'd done all their homework, and they said it's possible to do that, but if you do not figure out how to teach stewardship, you're going to create enemies rather than partners. Because many ministries will see you competing and taking money out of the orchard, so to speak, rather than expanding the orchard. The Ministry of Cru was not prepared to set up another ministry, and the consultants were very firm on that meeting that day, and I was just that little nobody in the room and listening to all of this. [00:25:29] Larry O'Nan: And somebody in the room as they, it was an impasse of this has got to happen or you probably were not going to raise the resources. And somebody said why don't we just sign that to Larry and let him figure out what the stewardship theology is of Campus Crusade. And that got the entire room to say, okay, we delegated that responsibility off, let's get back to more strategic things related to the campaign. But in my area of responsibility, now I had an assignment, and I was responsible to figure out something that nobody probably that day really cared if I ever figured out. But I did, because it was a responsibility that was assigned to me. And about, within the next two years, I brought two or three guys along with me, and we said, what in the world would a stewardship theology be? [00:26:17] Larry O'Nan: What is, what are we meaning by that? And we started looking at Scripture. And other things that were written out there. And we started to formulate what we would call a stewardship theology. And that radically changed what we did into the early eighties and moving forward, because now we were involving and inviting partners to be involved in changing the world rather than just begging for money and running from it. And it radically changed. I think even Cru today and many organizations I worked with, probably 30 organizations over the last 30 years. And I've tried to impact their thinking about how they see their people, how they relate to them. And you get a lot more people in partnership when you're treating them as partners. [00:27:02] Larry O'Nan: Joining hands and walking together in this world, rather than, I am the one that's called in the ministry, and you've got money, so please give it to me so I can go spend it. I'm responsible to the steward and ironically, the steward never gives up his responsibility of his stewardship. So, if a man is making significant money or a couple has made good money in their business, A good steward does not just give it away and dispense it. They want to know how you're doing with it. So, accountability. I want to go see it. I want to touch it. I want to know why you did it the way you did. [00:27:40] Larry O'Nan: What's the ROI? Are we making an investment? It's God's resources at work. How are you spending it correctly? It changes the dynamic of a lot of things. If you're looking at stewards correctly and realizing, it's a God ordained assignment that we've got as individuals. to use whatever God's given us effectively. So, I've been on this trip for a long time, and I love it. I never knew I would be getting into it. That wasn't my plan. It started off with those 20 boxes. [00:28:14] Tommy Thomas: I'm just saying you got me thinking. The first time I remember the term fund development was when my wife and I were working with the YMCA, and they didn't call it fundraising. They called it Fund Development. And now that I'm looking back and thinking about that, it seemed like we were partnering with people more than we were just you know, asking for a contribution. So that makes a lot of sense. [00:28:40] Larry O'Nan: And the concept of stewardship is way beyond if you're a believer or not a believer.  God basically has created us to take care of his stuff. He never gave it to us. So, you'll see in scripture that God gave them, gave the Garden of Eden to them. No, he didn't give it to them. He allowed them to live in his garden. His basic assignment to Adam and Eve, if you go back to Genesis 2, was to take care of my stuff and you can name all the animals. And I'm going to come down. I'm going to be so interested in what you're doing that in the cool of the day, we're going to walk around the garden and talk with each other. But the responsibility of being a steward was not taken away from Adam when he blew it. He was going to make a lot more work for him. [00:29:25] Larry O'Nan: He had to go pull weeds and take care of things differently by the sweat of his brow, as the scripture said. But the responsibility never changed. God still owns it all, and God wants us to take care of his stuff. Now, God's got five other things he wants us to do as well, but they're all related to stewardship. It's when an organization embraces the idea of partnering with the ministry, whether I chair a board of an organization here in San Bernardino County called Santa Claus Incorporated. That's its legal name. In 1951, it was incorporated as Santa Claus Incorporated, and we help about 225,000 kids a year that are some of the most desperate kids in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. [00:30:11] Larry O'Nan: And it's all about finding partners to work with us so that those kids can have what they need in terms of sometimes toys at Christmas. It could be shoes. It could be anything else they need. Backpacks. We work with school districts. We work with kids in crisis that are coming out of homes that the state's taken kids away from their parents. And it's all about helping the kid have a sense of well-being while he's under a state of crisis. But over and over again, the stewardship there is that we've got people nationally, and locally, they volunteer their time, they volunteer their money internationally, their organizations that are partnering with us to help us through, we work with some very large nonprofit facilitating type groups in New York and Washington DC that help us get goods. [00:31:06] Larry O'Nan: So, we give around six and a half million dollars' worth of product away every year because of partnerships.  Nobody feels like we have gouged them for money. Nobody feels like we've messed up their life. We've not been offensive to them. They are seeing that we're working together to accomplish a goal. So, whether it's a secular, humanitarian, or a very fine church, or a very fine nonprofit, evangelistic group, whatever it is, are we really treating and working in partnership with the people that God has placed in the hands of that organization to make that organization work? And when you mess up, they stop giving, but they don't, their money doesn't disappear, but they'll give it someplace else. If you abuse a relationship, they're going to go someplace else. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:31:54] Tommy Thomas: Join us next week, as we conclude this conversation with Larry O'Nan.  We will continue our discussion about lifestyle stewardship and fund development. I also asked Larry to talk a bit about his new book, Intentional Living and Giving, which was released in early April. ​​Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Larry O'Nan's Website  Larry O'Nan's Email: Larry@LarryONan.com  Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com  Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts  

[00:00:00] Carl LaBarbera: I met a guy, Dick Berry, who was a professional in the Policy Governance arena. And once I took his class, I was convinced that this was what I needed to do board work. And the reason for that is because primarily my own work in aerospace industry, knowing that systems and procedures are essential to do any kind of job that's going to be effective. [00:00:26] Carl LaBarbera: And when Policy Governance was presented that's the kind of system that I was seeing. And so, a complete, scientific system with procedures and thinking about all the elements of governance was something I needed. [00:00:42] Tommy Thomas:  My guest today is Carl LaBarbera. I met Carl several years ago at his home in Southern California.  He was gracious to give me a couple of hours that afternoon, and we've maintained some loose contact with each other since then.  One of the areas of expertise he has is that of Policy Governance, and I've known that, from the afternoon I met him, so as I was thinking about more guests we could have in the area of board service, Carl was one of the ones I wanted to have, so thank you, Carl, for joining us this afternoon. [00:01:14] Carl LaBarbera: Thank you, Tommy. It's my pleasure to be here and look forward to our conversation. [00:01:19] Tommy Thomas: Before we dig too deep into Policy Governance, how did you get interested in or involved in nonprofit board service? [00:01:29] Carl LaBarbera: That goes back 40 years. So, it's interesting. I don't know how far back you want me to go. [00:01:37] Carl LaBarbera: I can go back to my childhood because my dad had a company in inner city LA which is a very difficult area. [00:01:48] Tommy Thomas: Back then, especially, [00:01:49] Carl LaBarbera:   When I was a very young child, I was 11 years old when the Watts Riots occurred. And my mother and I were driving into the business in South LA. [00:01:59] Carl LaBarbera: And the Watts Riots were underway. And my mom swears that a black woman flagged off attackers.  She was in front of us, and we were able to drive into the business, but we had no idea. The news was not like it is today.  We literally drove into it. So that obviously left a big impression on me as a kid. [00:02:22] Carl LaBarbera: And I've had a heart for the inner city ever since. And we continued, actually, my brother and I took over the business that my dad had started and in 1957 after the war and in continued in that Watts area, but then we were bought out by the freeway and moved just slightly south of there in an area in Linwood, which is still South LA [00:02:48] Carl LaBarbera:  So that connection of having a business in that community and actually knowing the neighbors in that community, in the Watts community, which was primarily African American gave me that heart. And then I was listening to Focus on The Family. I would wake up in the morning, six o'clock in the morning, with Focus on The Family on the radio. [00:03:09] Carl LaBarbera: And Dr. Dobson was talking with Keith Phillips, who is the founder of World Impact, and talking about Watts. And I thought to myself, wow, that's literally across the street. And so, I made a journey to introduce myself to World Impact. At the time it was a Canadian director who was leading that Watts ministry. [00:03:33] Carl LaBarbera: And we got to become good friends in our company partnered with World Impact to help the missionaries in the Watts community and help them in any way we can to support them in their ministry. [00:03:45] Tommy Thomas: Wow. That goes back a long way. [00:03:49] Carl LaBarbera: We're talking 1990s. Yeah. At the time I met him, it was late eighties or early nineties. [00:03:55] Tommy Thomas: Did you have any kind of mentorship relative to board service? Did you have a model or a role model? [00:04:03] Carl LaBarbera: I think, my interest in board work really began with our own company. That was the work that I love to do, having a 30,000-foot perspective, being able to work at that high level, conceptual level seeing all the pieces in an organization the teamwork necessary to make an organization successful. [00:04:25] Carl LaBarbera: I got a hunger for that level of leadership in our own company, but where I was introduced to Policy Governance was at the Christian Management Association. So, I was a member of the association, which was called the Christian Management Association. Now it's called Christian Leadership Alliance. [00:04:44] Carl LaBarbera: And I met a guy, Dick Berry, who was a professional in the Policy Governance arena. And once I took his class, I was convinced that this was what I needed to do board work. And the reason for that is because primarily my own work in the aerospace industry, knowing that systems and procedures are essential to do any kind of job that's going to be effective. [00:05:11] Carl LaBarbera: And when Policy Governance was presented that's the kind of system that I was seeing. And so, a complete, scientific system with procedures and thinking about all the elements of governance was something I needed. And then of course, serving with a friend from church who was an urban ministry leader when he started his nonprofit Urban Youth Workers Institute and asked me to join his board and chair his board, John Carver. [00:05:44] Carl LaBarbera: It was like, what do I use to run a board? Because there's really nothing other than best practice information as to how you actually chair and run a board, how you lead a board. And so that's why policy governance just rung a bell for me, and I knew it was something I had to learn and be very good at. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:06:05] Tommy Thomas:  Get up at 50,000, 100,000 feet and look down. What's the primary purpose of the nonprofit board? One role of the Board is dealing with the risk factor.  Mitigating or at least evaluate risk to determine what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. [00:06:12] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, there is one, one primary purpose with two parts actually. And I can just simplify that to say get the mission done and stay out of trouble. So, there's two elements. And what we say, what we call mission, and we call ENDS is what benefit for what people at what worth. [00:06:33] Carl LaBarbera: So those three elements make up the mission or the ENDS. And then there's the risk factor. So, a board is there to mitigate risk or at least evaluate risk and to determine what's acceptable and what's not acceptable but that's the keeping the organization out of trouble part, right? [00:06:51] Carl LaBarbera: So, get the mission done, stay out of trouble. That's their primary purpose. And, but let me add that all that's done on behalf of someone. Especially in nonprofits, in a corporation, right? You are beholden to the shareholders. A board works on behalf of the shareholders. There are no shareholders in the nonprofit world, but what Carver was smart enough to know is that we're, the board is beholden to some, they don't own the organization, the CEO, the staff, they don't own the organization, who owns the organization? [00:07:25] Carl LaBarbera: In the church, we say Jesus owns it. Of course, he owns it all, but Jesus owns the organization, which is cool because he left us a whole book of values that we know that we are beholden to, that we need to comply with. But secondarily, there are owners or what we call care holders or stakeholders on the organization. [00:07:49] Carl LaBarbera: I could talk about the global church as owning a nonprofit. So, we need to be aware of the values of the global church. We could talk about those that the organization impacts. Not the beneficiaries so much, but the communities that would have an interest in the organization. So, when we determine who the owners are, the moral owners, we call them, who is interested in seeing this organization succeed, who is interested in the benefits that this nonprofit will bring. [00:08:24] Carl LaBarbera: And those are the people that we are beholden to, not in a democratic way, not like we're looking for them to give us majority rule direction, but in a way like a doctor or a lawyer would work in the best interest of their ownership. So, the client comes to the doctor. Obviously, the client knows something about their ailment, but the doctor knows more, they're an informed agent. [00:08:50] Carl LaBarbera: Or Robert Greenleaf would say a trustee. So, a trustee, their job is to follow the direction of the trust that is given to them. And that trust is the trust that the ownership holds. And so, the board is to determine what are those values and determine what is in the best interest of those stakeholders. [00:09:12] Carl LaBarbera:  That derives a whole set of policies, which then give direction to the organization. The role of the Board Chair is that of Chief Governance Officer – making sure that the Board accomplishes what is says it is going to do. [00:09:21] Tommy Thomas: Under this model, what's the primary role of the Board Chair? [00:09:25] Carl LaBarbera: The Board Chair is called the C.G.O. So Chief Governing Officer.  So, the Chief Governing Officer, the primary role really is to assure that the board accomplishes what it says it's going to do. In a sense, the chairman is a manager of the board itself to assure that whatever they said they were going to do, because they have a role, they have a job description, and to assure that they get that job done. But I'd also say that the chair is the interface or maybe the primary interface with the CEO. It's very important that chairman has a really solid relationship with the CEO, that there's a clear understanding that there's complete communication on both sides in order for that chairman to do his job well. [00:10:16] Tommy Thomas: Give me some words and phrases that maybe would describe the skillset that this chair needs to do his or her job well. [00:10:25] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, that really starts with character. Especially in a Christian organization, but any nonprofit really, but it's the character. So that's essential. I think essential elements are wisdom over a lot of experience, preferably humility is very important. I think a humble leader, a servant leader. So, I love Robert Greenleaf and all his writing on servant leadership, and I'm deeply indebted to Robert Greenleaf and his description of what a servant leader does. So that chairman really needs to be that servant leader like Jesus commanded. If you want to be a leader in the kingdom, you have to be the least of all. So that chairman serves the board, and they serve the CEO and they serve the organization. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: I know this would vary, but just from your experience, how often does the chair meet with the CEO to maintain this relationship and this esprit de corps? [00:11:25] Carl LaBarbera: World Impact is a good example. And Alvin Sanders, the CEO, and I have a standing meeting once a week on a Monday morning. And we try to communicate with one another on a regular basis just to have that regular flow of communication, what's going on in your world. What's going on from my perspective. And, of course, planning together what the agenda is going to be for the year and for the next meeting. All those things are critical and talking through what issues are important for the CEO to comply with the board policy manual. The board has created, in helping that process.  A lot of times I need to help educate the CEO in the process of Policy Governance. Because there are not a lot of Policy Governance experts out there. And yeah, you don't see that a lot. So, part of it is educating as well. [00:12:19] Tommy Thomas: When you get a new board member what's the best way to onboard this person? [00:12:25] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah. The first thing we do is provide the documents that we've created. So, it's really important for a new board member to understand the process, certainly. So, what is this process called Policy Governance? It's very different from what most people experience. I think I know beyond several boards that many board members want to show up and display their wisdom and their good decision-making skills. And that's really not, that's not what the board is all about. We want that, certainly, but the board needs to understand the process. The beauty of Policy Governance is that all of the things that need to be known are in a policy, a board policy manual, and that manual is less than 30 pages, and it covers all four aspects of what we would call the policy circle regarding CEO role the board role, the chairman role the interaction between the board and the CEO what the mission is and what the limitations are, the things that we can't do as an organization, even if they worked, things illegal or unbiblical. A good Board Policy Manual provides invaluable information for new Board members.  This manual is usually less than 30 pages. So that board policy manual really provides invaluable information to anyone coming on board gives them all the information they need. They're not going to get it all in the first read through, but all the information is there, and they can study that. And the other thing we do is, obviously we want them to know what the bylaws are and what the expectations are in terms of meetings, etc. So, it's really just a quick update getting board members up to date on where we've been, where we're going, and how we operate. [00:14:14] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you to get you to respond to this quote about a board service. Somebody said, “You need a director on a board who will be a pleasant irritant, someone who will force people to think a little differently. That's what a good board does.” [00:14:29] Carl LaBarbera: I love that because one of the things I strive for is called healthy, I call it healthy conflict. There's probably a better word than conflict, healthy discussion, which means we really want honest feedback from all our board members. So having that, and we definitely have those. A good irritant is someone who really is just thinking through. They're thinking from their perspective, and they're offering their perspective, and we need to hear it. Even if it's opposed to the direction that, we think we need to go, we need to know who was it that talked about Ruth Haley Barton. She talked about working together, finding God's will together. And you really need in teams, and I think it's any team, but including a board team, you need to know what the no people are saying. If someone's really objecting to where we're going, it's pertinent on us to determine what God is saying to that person. Why are they adamantly opposed? And if we don't take the time to figure that out, then we're neglecting our duty. As a board, so not again, obviously, you don't always achieve consensus, but I've been in situations on boards where we have worked it through taking some time and ultimately say there are two people that maybe don't agree, but they relent and say, we will submit to the wisdom of the board. And of course, one of the principles of Policy Governance is that we speak with one voice. After all the discussion and we finally get to the end of the day and we vote and some have to acknowledge that we don't agree, but we are going to speak with one voice when we're done with our work.  So that's critical. ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:16:23] Tommy Thomas: Your thoughts on bringing younger people in their thirties and forties onto a nonprofit board? [00:16:30] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, I would love to see that.  And I would love to see young people have that interest. My experience has been that young people aren't the younger generation, millennials, maybe is my experience aren't as interested in what they might consider business-like work. So, say in a church setting, right? Or even in a Christian ministry setting, this is a business job in which I really have a problem with that because I'm a firm believer that God owns it all that he works through business and churches and our ministry happens in all realms of life, right? But that kind of perspective is, yeah, I don't want to be involved in that kind of business process, but every time I've seen young people engage in the process, it is so helpful. So, I would be a big fan. Where do we find them? I have seen them in the governance organization governed for impact, which I'm a fellow with, and we have seen their young people take a real interest in governance. And when they do, then it's highly valuable. We need their perspective, right? This is where the world's going. [00:17:49] Tommy Thomas: For sure. [00:17:51] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah. We need millennial perspective. We need Z perspective. Yeah, I value that. I wish we could get more of it. [00:17:59] Tommy Thomas: I run into this a lot in my work and has to do with the past CEO being a member of the board when, when you bring a new CEO on, your thoughts just from so many years of experience that you've had any observations there. It can be very difficult when a retiring CEO, especially a founder wants to remain as an emeritus Board Member.  That can restrict the ability of the new CEO to make mistakes and/or go in a different direction if that's what the organization needs. [00:18:14] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, that's tough. I've seen that in churches. I've seen it, I've seen it in other nonprofits. It's just, it's very difficult because when a CEO, who's especially a founder, CEO or a founding pastor and wants to be an emeritus board member or emeritus leader, even that really restricts the ability of that new CEO to be free to make mistakes and go in a different direction to bring their unique skill set because each leader has a unique skill set and they should be allowed to use that. And so I just, I see it often doesn't work out very well. And you hear the phrase that you don't want to be the next guy. You want to be the guy after the next guy. Because oftentimes that first guy is still hanging around and influencing where it's going. And that could be debilitating. [00:19:06] Tommy Thomas: This is probably in your Policy Governance manual but tell us about CEO evaluation. [00:19:13] Carl LaBarbera: That's an ongoing process. So, it is not a once-a-year process, although we do a summarized once-a-year process, but in the board policy manual the policies pertain particularly to the CEO or the executive director or the lead pastor. Those things that are called the Ends. So those are what benefits for what people at what worth. And then there are the executive limitations. And there are quite a few of those limitations, as I said before, that are not allowed, even if they work, because they're illegal or biblical or other reasons. And so, we constantly have a calendar of monitoring. So there's a very specific process of monitoring those limitations, how that CEO is complying with the limitations, and how they're complying with the accomplishment of the mission or the end. And so that's done, I think the Ends probably are mostly done on a biannual basis, but the executive limitations as I said, on a calendar, they're done every meeting.  We're evaluating some aspects of that CEO's performance. [00:20:30] Tommy Thomas: So, under Policy Governance, do you use closed session or executive session a lot? Or is that not a part of the M.O. [00:20:40] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, no, not a lot at all. These are, there's nothing that is considered, not transparent unless there's something to do with, specific HR issues or something where it would be a problem legally, but otherwise now I believe in transparency. I believe this, everything we do at the board level should be transparent. I know as I chaired or on the executive committee at our church, everything we do there should be transparent to our membership. But it's, we do have, I know at World Impact, there is a session at the end of the year where we look at all the policy governance elements that either were complied or not complied with, but then we also get a little more personal and try to talk about their spiritual life, their personal life how, the communication with the board. So those are, those get to be touchy conversations, but necessary because that's part of the board's job is really to assure it's one of three responsibilities the board can't delegate. And that is to assure the success of the CEO and thus the organization. [00:21:57] Tommy Thomas: On strategic planning, from your perspective, how deep should the board get into that, or is that something that the CEO and his or her cabinet brings to the board? [00:22:08] Carl LaBarbera:  I'd like to think of strategic planning as a continuum of planning, right? When we do the ENDS work, the ENDS, again, are the high-level mission. It's what benefit, what people, at what worth. That is, that's the highest level of the strategic planning process. The board can get more specific about that policy of ENDS or mission, but then they stop. The job of the board is to stop communicating at the point which they're willing to allow any reasonable interpretation of that mission, right? It's hard work to determine that. So, trying to determine what it is that the board has to say to a CEO about the mission, but then allow freedom for him to have any reasonable interpretation or any strategic plan that can accomplish those ENDS.  That's the delicate part of developing that particular set of policies. It takes a lot of wisdom, prayer, and determination. You don't want to say too much because if the board is saying too much and prescribing too much, then that is not allowing our professional CEO to do their job well. ++++++++++++++++ [00:23:30] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to something that happened in mine and your era. People younger than us may not remember this, but certainly we do - the Enron scandal. And although they weren't a nonprofit, I'm sure there are things a nonprofit board can learn from that. But one of the writers that did some analysis there, his perspective was that probably the board didn't ask the tough questions that they needed to ask.  How do you get that done in a nonprofit? [00:23:58] Carl LaBarbera: Absolutely. And the way we get it done is through the policy manual. In the manual itself, in those executive limitations, we're asking the hard questions up front. There are limitations regarding financials. There are limitations regarding asset protection. There are limitations regarding staff. There are limitations regarding the relationship with the CEO to the board and all these things, safety issues. So that is the role of the board, is to think through. And Carver was genius about this in a scientific way. He thought through a dozen different categories of risk that the board needs to think about ahead of time. And of course, you're not going to think about all risks that can happen, especially today. It's so hard to figure out what's going to come at you at a pretty hard and rapid pace, but for the most part, to think in general, in a systematic way, what are all the risks that an organization might encounter? And to think about that in a systematic way and do it ahead of time and have those boundaries in place, which then provides the CEO freedom to do anything else. The beauty of policy governance is it lays out the boundaries of acceptability, like a football field and says, you have to stay within these parameters, within these limits, within the rules that we've outlined. You could do anything else to achieve your end if they haven't already been stated. So it's empowering to the CEO. It gives freedom to the CEO. It gives them freedom to make mistakes. But does provide those boundaries, which is clear communication between the board and the CEO. [00:25:45] Tommy Thomas: Go back to the Board Chair for a minute.  So you got but the two or three questions that I like to ask that, that I think the answers are good and one of them is, you get all the high power, which you want people that have got experience in making tough decisions dealing with complexity, dealing with risk But sometimes it's difficult for the, for those people to take the CEO hat off when they walk into the boardroom and become a member of the whole. Have you experienced that in recruiting board members and how have you effectively coached them into good board service? [00:26:19] Carl LaBarbera: So, are you asking, I just want to be clear, you're asking about those who have been or are CEOs that now become a part of the board, that kind of leader? [00:26:29] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, they're probably still the CEO in their organization and they've got an expertise that you need on the board. [00:26:34] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, exactly. Now that is a difficulty because, CEOs by nature are built to want to do strategy and make decisions and get things done. That is not the job of the board. And so, they really have to, and that's one of those characteristics of a good board members, you need to really set aside maybe your own leadership gifts to allow yourself to be a part of this team who is now going to operate from a 30,000 foot perspective, not at the operational level. Under Policy Governance, the Board's role is governance – not management.  That is a critical element of governance. Because that's not where we work. We are governance is not management. That is a critical element of governance. It is not management. We shouldn't be doing management work. We have professional CEOs that we've hired. We feel that the board members should be as professional as the CEO. Why shouldn't they be as trained and have as much expertise about their job that the CEO has about hs or her job and but to do that job and not someone else's right that there's another training element that high level leaders just need to be trained that this, you are not operating the organization. We are governing the organization. And that's a big difference. You're taking your leadership.  Your directive often becomes a trustee, which is a different role. [00:28:03] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned the CLA for people who might be members. There are people that might be Christian organizations. What about your standard, other kind of nonprofit? Where might they get this kind of training? Are there seminars or Policy Governance training that one could attend or sign up for? [00:28:23] Carl LaBarbera: Absolutely. I belong to the Govern for Impact Association.  They have an annual conference, and they have sessions throughout the year as well. And it's been a great place for me to really learn the process. It's a complex process and it should be.  They have classes, they have seminars, they have this conference once a year. There is training, future board members and chairmen, chair, chairwomen, chairpersons to do this work. And the interesting thing, this organization, started originally with the Carvers and those who are Carver-trained and but now has become this international organization, literally. And actually has been participating in in Europe to develop ISO standards. I was in the aerospace industry, everything we did, especially for government and military work had to be done to international standards or Boeing standards or Lockheed's or McDonnell Douglas standards. So now Policy Governance has been embedded in an ISO standard for governance, what we're hoping to see is that will trickle down and that will become expected of boards to adhere to a set of, international best standards. Policy Governance will be included, and will be a framework for that. [00:29:49] Tommy Thomas: What advice are you giving somebody who comes to you and said they've been approached by an organization to serve on their board? What questions are you telling them to ask? [00:30:00] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I guess I would warn them or ask them. They should know everything about that organization and how it operates that they can. And one of those things would be to see if there is Policy Governance in place. Just obviously, if you want to read the bylaws, to read those governing documents that will affect their role because the worst thing that can happen is someone get on a board and have to spend so much time and tedium and making decisions that are management decisions. When I first began serving with our church, there was an old process developed over many years where you had elders who each one represented an area of ministry in the church, and then they would come together as an elder board as a governing board. And then each 1 would be reporting out from their area of ministry which could be a dozen different ministries. And so, you have 20 people on a board and you are spending hours and hours listening and thinking about things that you really shouldn't be thinking about. That is not your job. And so, I definitely would not want to be a part of that board. And I would advise others not to be a part of that board. If the organization is not clear about that. The board's role in their job. I wouldn't advise being a part of that board. [00:31:34] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes on our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Christian Leadership Alliance Govern for Impact Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership Ruth Haley Barton World Impact   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

[00:00:00] Bob Lonac: And the authenticity part — I believe everybody wants to run into people that have that freedom.  When you don't have anything to hide — I think that's what authenticity is. It's you are you. And being you, when you start discovering it and relaxing, it is a lot easier than always thinking, what do you think? +++++++++++++ [00:00:29] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Bob Lonac. For people that have been regular listeners, you will remember Bob was the guest on our first episode, and I was so grateful that Bob would agree to be a guest on a podcast that never had occurred yet. And so, thank you, Bob. We're 126 episodes in now, so we've got more listeners and I trust I've gotten a little bit better in my interviewing skills.  Bob had a successful career. 30+ years with Young Life. And then he was on the ground level with the International Justice Mission and finished his career with Crista Ministries in the greater Seattle area. [00:01:09] Tommy Thomas: So, Bob, welcome again to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:13] Bob Lonac: Great to be here, Tommy. So, what you're doing, man. Thanks for all you've done for me. [00:01:19] Tommy Thomas: I read your newsletter this week. Maybe go back and just refresh our listeners. You retired from Crista, and you started consulting and this newsletter is a way for you to share what you're thinking about. [00:01:36] Bob Lonac: Yeah, newsletters may be an old word right now in today's world, but I always read newsletters on different things, finance whatever. And I thought, I am the kind of guy that's always thinking about stuff. And I think one of the things I do that over time people have told me is like put ideas into a way to communicate and help people grow, including myself. Because I'm always thinking about how can I be better and what can I do? So, I just threw out the idea of hey, you want to sign up? So, if you do want to sign up for what I do have, I've got several hundred subscribers. It's free. So you just go to boblonac.com and you can sign up there. [00:02:20] Tommy Thomas: I read the one this week and it had to do with giftedness and stewardship of your gifts, giftedness and honoring God with the way he created us and somehow that just that resonated with me, so I immediately got on the phone and called Bob and I said, let's do a podcast.  Let's discuss this. Bob, I remember back from our first conversation. You know, you mentioned, probably midway in your career with Young Life, or maybe late there, that you read the book, What Color is Your Parachute? by Dick Bowles. And was that your first introduction into giftedness or that kind of things? [00:02:55] Bob Lonac:  Probably, I think in most ministries and a lot of businesses there are like tests you take. Who is this person? And what should you really do? And the parachute one was one of the first that I did read. And a guy gave it to me that was helping me through a transition. [00:03:18] Bob Lonac: And I just got interested in that good question. Who am I? And it's really, I think a central question to those of us who want to be followers of Christ and, Jesus said, I've come, you might have life more abundantly and what does that mean? What is abundance? Does that mean getting rich?  I don't think so, but what is it and how do you understand it and how can you have more of it? [00:03:49] Tommy Thomas: Years ago, probably 10-12 years ago now, Max Lucado, the pastor down in San Antonio was going through a, maybe struggle. That's probably not too strong of a word on figuring out what his best giftedness was. He was trying to be a pastor of a mega church, but his passion was really writing and speaking. And so, he came to our organization, and we took him through the assessment SIMAÓ and he reorganized his whole church staff. He got an Executive Pastor to run the thing and freed him up to do what he does best, and that's to speak and to write. So, I think there is an element of stewardship there, of honoring God. [00:04:30] Bob Lonac: No doubt about it. My mentor in life, theologically, was Earl Palmer, who used to speak a lot of Young Life things. Great speaker, one of the best, and just a wonderful person. And he took me through a class on the Book of Romans with a small group. And he said this is the central understanding of the Christian faith is, what's the gospel, chapter 1 through 8, what happened to Israel, 9 through 11. And then starting with chapter 12, therefore, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. [00:05:05] Bob Lonac: And in chapter 12, the Apostle Paul talks about what are you supposed to do? Who are you supposed to be? And he says, the first three verses, are present your body as a living sacrifice. But the third one says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. And don't think less of yourself than you ought to. Socrates started the whole thing way back in 400 BC, right? Know Thyself. And a lot of times people ask me, I'll say something on a subject or something that I'm talking about, and they say, how'd you know that? What'd you do? How'd you do that? I'd go, I don't know. I just did it. It just came out of me. [00:05:52] Bob Lonac: I think that's what happens when you're operating on your gifts and who you are. It's not hard. [00:05:59] Tommy Thomas: From your experience, and you've supervised countless people, what keeps people from going there? [00:06:06] Bob Lonac: It's exactly the same thing in chapter 12. The beginning of chapter 12 is “don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold, but let Christ renew you from within”. And boy, in today's world, it's so full of insecurities from people looking around and wanting to be. I don't even understand all the words out there. I got ghosted. I got whatever. And how can I be, how can I be popular and all that kind of stuff. And if you're not in your sweet spot being you. And I do think the Bible talks about this a lot then you're trying to fake it. [00:06:53] Tommy Thomas: You probably know Ross Hoskins with One Hope. Ross says surround yourself with people who know you better than you know yourself, and they will tell you the truth out of love. That's how we grow. Sounds like you've got a little bit of that going on in your mindset here. [00:07:10] Bob Lonac: I think I got a lot of that going on. I have been blessed with unbelievable jobs that I, God brought me here, but whatever. And people ask me how did that happen? As a COO at International Justice Mission, I was the president, CEO of Crista, a big organization. How'd you do it? I think the one thing I'm good at is choosing other people who know stuff more than I do. [00:07:36] Bob Lonac: So, leadership is not about, look at me, how good I am, I can do this, let me help you do it. Leadership is about making other people successful. And that's the biblical idea. Oh, think about Jesus in the long haul too. Like, why did he die for us? Make us like the kind of people we were created to be. +++++++++++++++++ [00:08:02] Tommy Thomas: At what point at Young Life, did you get comfortable in your leadership skin? Did you acknowledge that this is how God put me together? This is what he wants me to do. And that's who I'm going to be. [00:08:16] Bob Lonac: I want to say that I'm still in that process.  I don't think we get to this deal where oh, okay. Now I got it. I do understand a lot more about myself. And I do want to very much be who God wants me to be and do what God wants me to do, but it's a lifelong process. We all are broken people. We all live in a world of sin, and it's a lifelong process that is chiseled away. I think the scripture says God is chiseling on me all the time to become the person he wants me to be. [00:08:58] Tommy Thomas: Here's a couple of quotes about authenticity. I'd like your response. There's great power in authenticity. Arthur Wiles said, Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. As St. Catherine of Siena put it, Be who God meant you to be and you'll set the world on fire. [00:09:17] Bob Lonac: In that newsletter, I said that Irenaeus in the year 300 said “the glory of God is man fully alive”. And, when you're being you and you are in connection with God, Christ, that doesn't mean things will go great. I'm facing some incredible personal challenges in my life right now. [00:09:39] Bob Lonac: I didn't get older and get better and everything got more wonderful all the time. It's up and down all the time. If it's not happening to you, the chiseling, it'll happen to you tomorrow. So, it's not easy. And the authenticity part is what everybody, I believe everybody wants to run into people that have that freedom. When you don't have anything to hide, I think that's what authenticity is. It's you are you. And being you actually, when you start discovering it and relaxing, it is a lot easier than always thinking, what do you think? Here's a classic one. One of my grandsons, he's in the eighth grade, he's out helping me work in the yard. And he comes over to me and grandma, I have a great relationship with my kids and great kids. He says, grandpa, I have a question for you. What is it? Hey, I can hardly wait till I get old like you. Okay. This guy can hardly wait till I get old. I said, why? He said, then I can say no to people. [00:10:59] Bob Lonac: And I go, oh, why do you think you can say no to people, grandpa. Yeah, I tried to do it nicely. Yeah, you shouldn't, but you should be able to say no to people too. Oh, I don't know. I got this opportunity to do this. I got this opportunity. These people want me to do this. You gotta be with this crowd. And he's really an intelligent kid doing great at school, but he's like the world around him is trying to make him into something that he doesn't want to be. And that's, that was such an interesting little real-life story about that. [00:11:38] Tommy Thomas: In your newsletter you cited four ways to help people discover and affirm their identity.  And I'm sure you probably use this in your consulting, and you probably used it when you had a staff, but can you go into that a little bit and let's unpack those a little bit. [00:11:55] Bob Lonac: You want to take them one by one for me? [00:11:58] Tommy Thomas: You started with affirming your identity. [00:12:01] Bob Lonac: Yeah, that's you know, and there's a lot of ways to do that. You have the Enneagram; you have all kinds of tests and other things which are really helpful. I think really helpful. And I've done a lot of those things. So, I think our identity has a lot to do with what kind of person you are, but your identity also must center on who you are in Christ. What does Christ say about you and that freedom that comes from unconditional love in your relationship with him is. [00:12:41] Tommy Thomas: Your second point, you said what lights your fire? The power of story. [00:12:46] Bob Lonac: Yeah. What lights my fire is getting into relationships and talking to people one on one. I was picking my wife up from getting her hair styled.  Two hours, right? So I talked to her hairstylist. Start talking to her who's starting a new hairstyle business where she's going to be the owner and I don't know, she's an easy person to talk to and I thought she's gonna say goodbye, I got another deal. We talked for about a half hour sitting there, the two of us and my wife and I walked away from that, and it was totally fun. I was talking to her about stuff. I knew in my consulting business thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, gee, never thought about that. Thank you. And they asked me questions and I thought that's me. [00:13:39] Bob Lonac: That's what I love to do. And in fact, that's where my whole life has gone right now. I do one on one conversations with people, and I don't mean that all in my consulting deal. That's really important. I love doing that, but my neighbors, my people I run into, it's just who I am and what I do. And when I do that, it's totally fun. [00:14:10] Tommy Thomas: When you know what lights your fire and you do it more often than not, I think that's part of this element of stewardship of who God puts you together to be. [00:14:19] Bob Lonac: Absolutely. Yeah. [00:14:21] Bob Lonac: I don't think I don't buy that he gave you the deal of, hey, I'm going to send you to be a missionary and it's going to be miserable, but you're serving me. [00:14:33] Tommy Thomas: Your third point was exploring your strengths. [00:14:37] Bob Lonac: Yeah, I had one as a leader. I had one very simple thing, do what you do well and find other people that do what you don't.  It's so hard to shore up my weaknesses. And I think that's my experience with other people and it's miserable to try to do it, at least for me, whereas you're working to your strengths. That's the game. [00:14:57] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. Your fourth point, find people who really know you and love you and invite them into the process. [00:15:07] Bob Lonac: Speak the truth in love. I think this is, especially if you're a leader, I have a little small group of business owners who are Christians. It's really hard to get people, especially if you're the CEO or you own a small business, to tell you the truth. And it's hard to get anybody to tell you the truth or even tell you what they think, which may not be the truth. [00:15:35] Bob Lonac: But here's another point, Tommy, that I could talk all day about. I don't think mature Christians should be defensive about anything. Defensiveness is not a spiritual virtue because if you find your self-worth in your relationship with Christ and in whom he made you. You're going to be a hard guy to offend. [00:16:05] Tommy Thomas: What can you think back to when you got comfortable with that? When you realize that, yeah, I don't have to fight back. [00:16:14] Bob Lonac: Yeah, I think it's been a lifelong process. It still is. And one of my, I don't know if it's a gift or some things are like this. I don't know if they're a gift or a pain because I like to talk. And so, for me, like shutting up is a, what I'd say is a self-control virtue. Christ talks about, you don't have to say that, Bob, you're right. You know what you're saying, but you don't have to say that, shut up. [00:16:46] Bob Lonac: Now right there is a battle that I'll probably take to the grave, I think it's always an interchange, but it's centered and matured in, I know it is God's work in us. It's not performing. It's hard to do it under your own strength. So, to me, it's relinquishing everything to Jesus.  Nevertheless, Lord, not my will be done, but Yours. [00:17:12] Tommy Thomas: And your last point in that section of the newsletter was to keep discovering who you are in Jesus and be you. [00:17:21] Bob Lonac: There's a point when, and I think it could be fairly early life when you think you discover what your talents are and what your spiritual gifts are. And I think those are two different things. Natural talents, I can't run fast. I was a fast catcher in baseball. I was stuck with that. I didn't have much to do. So, whatever your natural gifts are, you got them and the spiritual ones you learn and grow as you explain, find them and then learning how to connect those two ideas with the Word of God. And this is easier, I retired four years ago, so now my consulting business, I get to control how much I work. [00:18:03] Bob Lonac: And I'm just fascinated by the Bible. I've been teaching the Bible all my life, but I'm more fascinated than ever at what, what happens here, and what, did that really say that? And what does that mean? So that is, I would say my wonder and joy experience is, and then that's sometimes what I talk to other people. And a lot of times leadership is asking questions. People think leadership has to do with giving answers and questions, going, I, that's what I do. A little small group thing. I'd say, hey, I read this the other day. You guys, what do you think of this? What do you think that means? We talked about that idea of the abundant life two weeks ago in our group.  What does that mean to you? Man, that thing, that's all I asked. The rest of them went at it forever. +++++++++++++ [00:18:53] Tommy Thomas: Interesting that I guess the private sector and maybe the secular organizations they've picked up on the strengths thing. I was reading an article in the Harvard Business Review. It says a lot of professional development programs focus on the negative, what you're doing badly and need to improve. But if you focus on the strength it provides a powerful way to grow. And then, the people at Case Western David Cooperrider and his Appreciative Inquiry expounds on what's working well and what's the potential there. [00:19:26] Tommy Thomas: I guess that's not to say you don't work on improving things, but you probably make a lot more headway if you start with what's going right. [00:19:34] Bob Lonac: Yeah, I certainly believe that, but I also think that people think there's a big difference between a nonprofit or a Christian organization and a for profit organization. And I don't think there's one bit of difference. I think leadership is leadership. Leadership is explained in the Bible. The Bible is the truth of God. And when you try to figure it out yourself, you're probably going to go down a rat hole once in a while and try to simply understand what God's Word is and become that and count on the Lord's involvement in your life and spend your time thinking about those kinds of things. [00:20:24] Bob Lonac: What are you learning? Are you curious about your own relationship with God? I take guys on retreats once in a while, and the one of the questions we send them out is hey, how do you hear God? How do you hear God's word? How do you hear God's voice? I've had numerous people say, I've never heard God's voice. And I'm going, I'm not sure I've ever heard God's voice that if you talk out loud to me, no, I think there's a lot of ways to analyze how you can hear and listen to God and learn how to do that. And I'm talking to another grandson about the same thing. He thinks he wants to go into being a missionary overseas. [00:21:10] Bob Lonac: He's only a junior in high school. And I'm like let's talk about that. What do you want to do? You got to listen to God. And how does that happen? And watch for open doors, walk through the open doors, do this, do that. So it's again, this whole thing, I think Christians have wanted to put everything into a nice neat package and tell you what you shouldn't do. You shouldn't smoke, shouldn't drink, shouldn't do this. That was my era. And then here's what you should do. Here's this and here's what you don't do.. It's never been like that. Every time I tried that kind of approach it didn't work. Especially if I faced my own feelings and thoughts and I love this idea that we can't run away from sins. We must run towards something better. We have to be captured by something we really want. Somebody told me recently, you are going to get what you want. Everybody gets what they want. Now you've got to start thinking about that one, right? The question is, what do you really want? And if you look at the average American out there, what they really want is a good job, great kid. [00:22:40] Bob Lonac: You could put a lot of nice things, put a lot of bad things, but the idea of a living, vital relationship with Christ. is not what they really want. They would like it, but the things you really want, you try and make happen. [00:23:02] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you a closing question. You've got a lot of time to think now that you're retired. And as you say, you control your work schedule. What do you understand about yourself or life now that you probably didn't understand when you walked out of Crista? [00:23:20] Bob Lonac: Oh gosh, that's a good question. There's no doubt about it. Like a lot of people, I've been blessed with good health. I'm a high energy person. I like doing stuff. And the doing stuff is how I got my jobs, right? And I liked doing it. Nobody had to tell me to go to work. I liked going to work. I had a great job. I thought, and I never ended for enthusiasm for the day. Be still and know that I am God. So, I am now learning another great calling in life. And it's, and see, I don't think that it's a part of a natural progression. Maybe, I don't know. For me, it's cultivating an interior sense of peace in the ability to love others unconditionally. [00:24:25] Bob Lonac: Love others unconditionally. I was talking to a Catholic buddy. He works in my yard. And I love talking to the guys that work in my yard. And I said, oh man, the drivers around here were crazy. I almost got in an accident. They're crazy. And he said to me, Bob, you know what the priest told me? No matter what happens to you, you say, God bless them, help me. I'm like, holy mackerel. See, that's the kind of person I want to be. I want to be that kind of person. And the only way I become that person is in my own knowledge because I'm in a personal position right now of having to live most all my day in a completely loving, serving, caring relationship with my family and I don't get much time for me now. Where do I get the energy for that? It's easy to be the CEO. Everybody goes oh, Mr. Lonac - Oh, you're the president of blah blah blah blah blah. If you feed off that stuff, you're in trouble. I get to love people and I get to try and learn and experience not looking for anything from it. The founder of Fuller Seminary came to share with me, not the founder, but what the teacher shared with me a Buddhist saying, Nishkama Karma, okay? And God's truth is everywhere, right? Here's the saying, do your duty to God without regard to the fruit of your labor. You don't do things for God for what you can get out of it.  How else can you explain the life of Jesus? Everybody says, take care of yourself. And Jesus said, let this cup pass for me, but nevertheless, Lord, not my will be done. Your will be done. That is what's passionate in your heart is for God's will to be done through you. No matter what, that's how we have martyrs. [00:27:09] Tommy Thomas: That's how we have people that really make a difference for the world for Christ. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Bob Lonac.  Bob is someone that I never tire of talking with. Every time I read his writing or talk with him. I come away with a nugget that I can use in life. In the show notes, I will leave Bob's contact data as well as links to his newsletter. Additionally, I will put the link to the pilot episode of this podcast where Bob was my guest. [00:27:39] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. [00:28:03] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing.  Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. [00:28:27] Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Bob Lonac's Website Email Bob Lonac: blonac81@gmail.com  Pilot Episode of Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Bob Lonac   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts    

[00:00:00] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family. I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally. ++++++++++++++ [00:00:42] Alberto Huerta: Our guest today is Alberto Huerta. Alberto has brought his expertise in brand strategy and management, marketing and fundraising strategy, product development and innovation, and donor insights and analytics to such organizations as Visa, Kraft, Procter Gamble, Compassion International, and World Vision. [00:01:03] Tommy Thomas: He's skilled in turnaround, startups, and global enterprise operations. Alberto, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:11] Alberto Huerta: Thank you so much, Tommy. It's a pleasure to be with you today. [00:01:14] Tommy Thomas: Before we go too deep into your professional experience, I always like to explore someone's childhood.  So take me back to your childhood.  What do you remember as being formative? [00:01:28] Alberto Huerta: Certainly, the people in my life. Tommy, I had a mom who was always there for me. Unconditional love for sure. My dad modeled honesty and hard work and respect for others. An amazing brother who modeled kindness and generosity. And I have to highlight my grandma who modeled Jesus for me. And it took me a while, but she certainly planted some seeds that sprouted later in my faith walk. Besides just the great people in my life, English was always a part of my life growing up in Mexico. My mom loved the U.S. She traveled to the U.S. when she was really young. [00:02:04] Alberto Huerta: And instilled that in our family. I developed a taste for other cultures and languages living outside of the U.S. and in Europe and then back to Mexico where I chose to study industrial engineering. I never really practiced it, but it ended up being a really great school and a really great skill set for what I ended up doing. [00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in Mexico? [00:02:29] Alberto Huerta: High school in Mexico … I was in Colorado Springs for a couple of years with my uncles. They were kind enough to receive me and my brother for 9th and 10th grade. So when I got back to Mexico, it'd been about seven years. I'd been away in Europe with my mom. And then, as I said, with my uncles in Colorado, and so getting back to Mexico to finish high school was, a really different experience. It was almost a reverse cultural shock getting back and getting acquainted with Mexico again. I had the fortune of being in an upper middle class family where I had access to really great schooling, which led to the opportunity to go to the Monterey Institute of Technology to be able to study there. So really grateful for the opportunities my parents opened. [00:03:17] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to know about you? [00:03:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy!  That I have only spent 15 years of my life in Mexico. I'm 52 this year which means that I've been around a lot of places, both in Europe and Canada, where my two daughters were born and then a variety of different places in the U.S. where different opportunities both with P&G and Kraft and Visa. So, I would say the amount of exposure to different cultures and different cities. I just love languages. I love different cultures. I've really gravitated to global roles over the years because I really appreciate and enjoy the company of people from other countries and the friendships that I've been able to develop.  So that's a big part of what has shaped me. And I credit my mom for that. [00:04:05] Tommy Thomas: So, you spent the first 15 years of your career with P&G. What went into your decision to go with P&G? [00:04:12] Alberto Huerta: The friend that introduced me to Brenda, my wife of 27 years, was the same friend who said to me one day, last semester of industrial engineering school, he said Procter & Gamble is on campus. It's really hard to get in. We ought to go try. And so, we did and that was my introduction P&G and brand management. This whole idea of, at a very early stage in your career, being given a business to run and managing it from a brand and marketing viewpoint. So, the process itself, Tommy, was extraordinary and had multiple steps in it. The highlight for me was a three-day weekend in a hotel where they cooped us up, all 40 candidates of us, and just put us through the ringer. [00:05:02] Alberto Huerta: Late nights being evaluated on our leadership skills. I made it somehow and was able to enter the P&G family. I am so grateful for my years there. The leadership that they teach. And enable you to practice the mastery, the collaboration across various functions and up and down the management chain. I am really grateful for my time with P&G, which actually started in Mexico, but then continued in the Czech Republic. That in and of itself is a long story. And then Canada, and then all roads lead to Cincinnati when you're at P&G. And so, I did my last year's working on fabric care, or more simply said, detergents. [00:05:46] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back to your first management job when you actually had somebody reporting to you, what do you remember about that? [00:05:55] Alberto Huerta: I'm still in touch with the three, four people that were with me in my first assignment. That was brand manager for Folgers up in Canada. And it was just such an honor to be able to recognize that I had the opportunity, even if just for a year or two or three an opportunity to shape the career of people with such talents and energy and deeply complex personal lives. So, for me to look for that opportunity to develop and play a valuable role in people's development has always been super, super motivating for me. [00:06:31] Tommy Thomas: So, let's fast forward to today and if I had the privilege to come out to Compassion or World Vision and you let me talk to your direct reports, what would they say would be the most challenging aspect of working with Alberto?  And then what would they say would be the most rewarding part of working for you? [00:06:49] Alberto Huerta: The most challenging part, I would say my favorite movie is Rocky. And aside from my lack of true film knowledge, you could say, Rocky is relentless, and he doesn't give up easily. And sometimes that can be tiring because there's always a higher bar. There's always the next goal. Taking no for an answer but working together to find ways to get around it. I think in a sense, I think that can be tiring. And I am very driven. [00:07:21] Alberto Huerta: I am very high energy. So, one of the things that I've learned is to think about the way I was taught. What gear do you enter a conversation with? If you're always in 4th gear, 5th gear, 6th gear that can be unnecessary sometimes and that generally is my default. So, what does it look like to enter a conversation in first gear or second gear? And really being able to connect and engage in a variety of ways based on the situation and the person. [00:07:50] Alberto Huerta: Now about what might be exciting or fun for people to work with me, it's always the strength and the other side is the opportunity, isn't it? And for me it's exciting to see how people respond to the energy I can bring towards what is possible. What are we building over time? What are we building over time together? That is meaningful. So, you can imagine that coming into Christian nonprofits has been particularly motivating because it takes it from something that can be very exciting and what you're doing with a package good or in financial services, but to be able to have that same kind of energy and transformational dream for us to work towards and against, I think is something that is motivating. [00:08:33] Alberto Huerta: Based on the feedback that I receive in helping people find their particular way of contributing towards the greater transformation that we're aiming for as a team. And so, I think that's probably what services to the top. When I think about the feedback I've received over the years. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:51] Tommy Thomas: Tell me a little bit about the mentors in your life.  Who has been the most influential mentor? [00:08:57] Alberto Huerta: I'll give you a person as well, a regular human being, but I do value the teaching of the Bible around praying continuously and being able to be sensitive to the Spirit is something that I strive for every day in this very conversation, what am I, why am I saying, what is helpful, what is not helpful, what is imbued with the direction and love of Jesus.  He's my moment-to-moment mentor. And I love him for that. I would say the second would be my brother. He knows me through and through, the highs and the lows. And what I appreciate about him the most is his listening and his ability to demonstrate unconditional love to tell me what I need to hear, whether it's easy to hear or not.  And so, I appreciate him for that. I think he would be my longest-term mentor, I would say. [00:09:46] Tommy Thomas: In 2015, you left what was probably a financially lucrative job with Visa to go to work with Compassion. Tell us about that move. [00:09:58] Alberto Huerta: It's a move that really had its beginnings in 2010, five years earlier. I realized in my faith walk, for me, it was not going to make sense to think about retiring in a for profit job. And so, I began conversations with Christian nonprofits that would value mass marketing skills, mass brand building skills. And that led me to start a conversation with organizations like World Vision, like Compassion and it was not an easy decision, but it was one that I felt really great about the point in time where this decision became most pressing was when I was working at Visa, and at the same time, my wife and I were co pastoring a small Hispanic congregation and I sensed a need a calling to integrate more of my lifestyle and be able to work for an organization that was in and of itself dedicated to advancing the purposes of Jesus. And so ultimately that's what made that decision, although a big one, a very natural and easy one for me when the day came. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: What's the most significant difference you've observed between the private sector and the nonprofit sector? [00:11:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh, there's a lot of similarities, but there's certainly some differences. Probably at the heart of it, when I think about differences, I truly value the focus on a mission that is so clear and so compelling and really goes above any financial metrics. Now, I know that's also true of some for-profit organizations. In fact, probably some of the ones that are most profitable and most successful over time are ones that do see beyond just the financial. But that is obviously much more common, I would say, and much more natural for a nonprofit to be able to value their mission to value the impact that they're making, and it truly changes how one contributes to it because it's not enough to be a marketer. [00:12:12] Alberto Huerta: It's not enough to be a fundraiser. It's about truly understanding the impact that is being made. How is that impact made? What are the actions that drive that impact? How effective are we making that impact? I think that is so crucial in being a successful and an effective marketer within a nonprofit. Being able to build a very strong bond and tight relationship with the programmatic leaders. So that would be one that I would highlight, Tommy, and that leads to the importance of end-to-end solutioning with programs which I've enjoyed a whole lot. It's one thing to solve for a supporter or a donor. [00:12:52] Alberto Huerta: It's another in the much more complex model that the nonprofits have where there's more stakeholders in play to be able to solve for the whole and to be able to really value and understand the needs, not only of the end beneficiaries in the case of Compassion and World Vision would be the children in the communities around them, but also the various stakeholders, both near and far from the beneficiaries.  And I found that particularly interesting and motivating. [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas:  What was your greatest adjustment in coming from Visa to Compassion? [00:13:30] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy!  A common understanding is that for a believer's first move into a Christian nonprofit, whether you like it or not you just imagine that you're stepping into heaven, right? A little piece of heaven. It's all believers. We're all following the same God. We're all following the same biblical principles.  It must be heaven there. You might not say that overtly, but you expect it, and you have a very high bar and imagination and then slowly, but surely you realize, hey, there's people like me in this organization. So, there's a bit of a high. As you first step into an organization like this, and then there's a realization that we're all a work in progress as individuals, as couples, as families, and as organizations as churches. So that's definitely one of the key important realizations walking into Compassion. More broadly I would say it is true both of Compassion and World Vision that these are longstanding, mature organizations working within mature sectors, certainly from a product or fundraising perspective. [00:14:39] Alberto Huerta: And what I particularly relish was, the intrapreneurship that that I was able to push into the opportunity to identify ways that the organization could change and grow and being able to help the organization embrace change from within, which, in my view, is particularly meaningful because it then leverages the strengths of the organization and it's able to operate and grow in a way that is relevant. And it continues to stay fresh and both for the supporters as well as for the beneficiaries. [00:15:13] Tommy Thomas: In terms of a leadership role, how do you assess what's right for you? [00:15:22] Alberto Huerta: And the way I'm understanding your question, Tommy, is how do I assess what's right as I think about leadership roles that I'm evaluating for myself? Is that the essence of your question? [00:15:31] Tommy Thomas: What makes a good fit for Alberto? I want to work for an inspirational leader – a true visionary. [00:15:35] Alberto Huerta: I have several criteria. There's one that I added. Or I would say I moved up the list in recent weeks is working for an inspirational leader, a true visionary. [00:15:49] Alberto Huerta: I think that's something that's particularly motivating for me right now. I feel if the energy and the big idea is coming from the very top that can really spell tremendous progress and success and accomplishment. So that's one that's really important for me. [00:16:05] Alberto Huerta: The other one I would say it's certainly culture.  A culture of understanding what the mission is and being able to be focused on accomplishing the mission. Being able to for there to be a sense within the organization that we can pour ourselves into the mission and the organization will take care of us as individuals. [00:16:26] Alberto Huerta: That's a little bit idealistic potentially, but I saw that even at P&G and certainly at Compassionate and World Vision. So, I value culture and that selflessness to pour oneself into the mission as another key criteria. And if I were to pick a third one, I would say learning a learning organization, one that does not rest on their laurels. [00:16:48] Alberto Huerta: One that is continuously finding ways to experiment. It can be so tempting to be hand to mouth, like in the performance engine, just producing, and it can suck the life out of experimentation and innovation and just even being able to bring one's full skillset into the job. I want to work for a learning organization - one that doesn't sit on its laurels. [00:17:08] Alberto Huerta: So that'll be a third one, but it's great question, Tommy. And I think it's a learning journey, isn't it? What is the best fit for us? Depending on the season as well. +++++++++++++++ [00:17:17] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your career did you get comfortable in your leadership skin? Did you accept the fact that God had given you certain leadership abilities and it was your responsibility to steward those? [00:17:34] Alberto Huerta: Wow, that's a great question. I gravitated to leadership because I'm driven. I tend to be more of a futurist. So I see where we might be headed. I like to see the big picture and integrate the various pieces as far as getting comfortable with it. I think that came fairly naturally. I think over time. And it doesn't happen immediately, does it? Just realizing that the biggest job of a leader is, in fact, developing leaders. And it wasn't until the jobs started to get large enough that I just had no choice. As an example, my last job at Compassion comes to mind where I had anywhere between eight and 10 direct reports leading particular marketing disciplines. [00:18:21] Alberto Huerta: It became so natural for me to be able to really focus on developing leaders because there was no way that I could be investing myself into that many different disciplines but rather really investing myself in my team, investing myself in my leaders and being able to carve a path for the whole. So, I would say that the various roles invite new levels of leadership for each of us. And that's certainly been an exciting part of the journey for me. [00:18:50] Tommy Thomas:  Let's go to change and innovation for a minute. I read a recent Harvard Business Review Survey that said 37 percent of companies had energy for change but lacked focus. 20 percent were skeptical of change because of past failures. 24 percent were stuck because of a lack of energy and direction, and 19 percent were struggling to change. If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. (Phillip Crosby) [00:19:15] Tommy Thomas: Phillip Crosby said, if anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. Talk a little bit about how you've led organizations through change and what that's looked like. Organizational change is easy when there is no choice – not so much so when the need for change is not obvious. [00:19:34] Alberto Huerta: When change is unavoidable it's so much easier, isn't it? I remember working on the P&G laundry portfolio. There was an economic crisis at the time. There were 2 or 3 competitors, both on the private label side, as well as value detergents that were eating our lunch in certain channels. And so, change was inevitable at that point. And so, it became really clear. The energy was there. The expectation was there. We created awesome solutions. It was still really hard to create the right solution to fit the bill. But the need for change, I think, was felt. And that led to P&G really embracing the full scope potential of Tide as a mega brand playing across various categories and subcategories, but also and mostly the importance of the detergent laundry portfolio for P&G and being able to develop the various brands to be able to compete effectively in the marketplace. [00:20:35] Alberto Huerta: However, when change is not obvious I think it is that much more rewarding when we can make it happen, but also that much harder because our organization will resist change that doesn't feel eminently needed because it's working and it's profitable and the momentum is there. [00:20:57] Alberto Huerta: And it can lead organizations in my experience to a sales and fundraising mindset that starts to put to the side where the product should be going, where the brand should be going, where the marketing strategy should be going and it can start to, to let a problem continue to fester and ultimately become a problem that that, as we know, has buried organizations. So, I feel that being able to clarify the case for change and build really strong unity around that case for change. I'm a big proponent of Cotter's eight steps to really seeing change through. I think those are so wise and so true, particularly when change is not obvious or well accepted. [00:21:49] Tommy Thomas: Last year, Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy and later will be purchased by Overstock. One writer attributes their financial woes to their failure to innovate. Is there a lesson there for the nonprofit sector? [00:22:05] Alberto Huerta: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's certain mechanisms and approaches that work and we tend to get enamored by them. And we all know the most visible examples of disruption of sectors and those are real and those are accelerating. And so, I think it's particularly important for organizations that are starting to get stale or starting to experience a certain comfort level to be clear on what is truly foundational of the organization and what is going to be a consistent truth that they can live into. [00:22:45] Alberto Huerta: And what are things that do need to be revisited and sometimes broken and rebuilt? It reminds me of Jeff Bezos talking about Amazon and saying there are a few things that are not going to change, and we can bank on those people who are going to want more assortment. People are going to want to lower the price. People are going to want to get it fast. Now, everything else can change, but let's anchor on those key pieces. I think particularly mature nonprofits that that have some strong foundational pieces that you should continue to push into should be very clear on what those are, and then start to innovate and differentiate and break down walls and barriers where they should be broken. [00:23:27] Alberto Huerta: One of the common products across both Compassion and World Vision is the child sponsorship product. Such a beautiful product and so relevant to today. I think about subscription. So that is obviously a problem. We all have way too many subscriptions and we need apps to be able to manage our subscriptions. And it's also a very relevant product because of the connection to a local team who's working locally, who's committed to that particular community. There are so many aspects of sponsorship that are so powerful. And yet it's been difficult for the sector to innovate at the rate that it could have. [00:24:09] Alberto Huerta: It is encouraging though, to see organizations with both Compassion and World Vision, I would say really pushing into ways of bringing truth from supporters into the building and being able to work through those. World Vision's chosen sponsorship, I think, is a really great example of that one where there's a real empowerment of the child, the real listening to the supporter on the kinds of things that would be more motivating and make their connection to the child in, in a property context, more real and more meaningful to them. It is not easy for organizations to innovate in such ways. It takes true commitment, and it can be very heavy lifting, but it's worth it. +++++++++++++++ [00:24:55] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to something maybe a little bit lighter. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank, what are the questions you would have to have solid answers to before you would open your pocketbook? [00:25:08] Alberto Huerta: That's an easy one because I've been thinking about that in this season and that is would you invest your own money into that nonprofit and why I found that it is so interesting to think about the big shift that we've seen over the decades and years where it used to be that one would give to an organization purely because of their beliefs, their values, their trust in the organization. They think like me. They value what I value. I'll put my money in their pockets. That's not today's world. I think donors are very sophisticated, increasingly sophisticated. We are very visible about the organization. And so, it is so important that we, particularly in the marketing and fundraising departments, are completely soaked in all things program. [00:25:58] Alberto Huerta: We need to not be the flashy, smart, cool marketers only, we really need to be the representatives of amazing work that's happening in the field with our beneficiaries. And that we're able to represent that we know why it's believable. We know why it works. And one of the ways that I think is particularly powerful is we know what needs to get better even in our program. And that is what donors I believe are looking for these days is transparency. To be able to know that it is not perfect. It is well built. It is yielding results. And it is improving just like we would expect for profit to be improving. [00:26:44] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to two quotes from Steve Jobs. You can have a great product, but if communication fails, it's like watching a stand-up comedian do a gig in a completely different language (Steve Jobs) [00:26:59] Alberto Huerta: That is so true, isn't it? The picture that comes to mind is the front of the TV and the back of the TV for anybody to or, in a more modern way, would be our beloved iPhone, right? It's one thing to experience the iPhone. It is simple. You pinch your fingers, you drag your fingers, you click that's what the person cares about. [00:27:21] Alberto Huerta: What we care about is both sides, right? The back of the iPhone and the insides of the iPhone and we fall in love with it. We love to delve into the complexities of it, but if we're not able to present it in a way that is relevant to who the user is be it in communication, be it in, from a UI perspective then we will fail. [00:27:43] Alberto Huerta: And it's certainly something that Steve jobs modeled for all of us with his products. [00:27:49] Tommy Thomas: His second quote. It's a complicated and noisy world, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So, we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. (Steve Jobs) [00:28:09] Alberto Huerta: It's a powerful one, isn't it? And he went on to talk about values and that led to communication from Apple, such as the very famous think different campaign with Gandhi and Einstein and Charles Chaplin and all these geniuses who are crazy enough to think they could change the world. [00:28:27] Alberto Huerta: And so, they were the ones who did. And so, I think he walked that really well. I think it is so important for organizations to know who they are and also to know who they're becoming for whom, right? Who they are becoming, how, what value they bring and how that really is in some ways the way to materialize their values, right? [00:28:51] Alberto Huerta: It's the way to materialize their values. And I think organizations like Compassion and World Vision are ones that understand their essence very well, and they're able to bring it across in ways that truly connect. We see Jesus, for example.About a dozen times in the New Testament being moved with compassion, right? [00:29:11] Alberto Huerta: He saw something and he was moved with compassion in such a way that he was going to bring such strength and love and really throw themselves at whatever that need was because their heart had been moved with compassion and I think that's such a beautiful essence of Compassion and why it's so easy for people to feel such a connection to it similar with World Vision. [00:29:35] Alberto Huerta: We think about seeing the world differently and seeing our ability to reach beyond our own walls and see the world differently. The need around the world and being able to work as a whole for those that are in most need for those that are hardest to reach. So, I think being able to be clear on one's essence is really critical to be able to be successful in an environment that is so noisy, as you said. [00:30:02] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close. I have two questions that I often ask at the end. And the first one would be, if you could get a do over in life, what would it be? [00:30:15] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy, that's a big one. If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. [00:30:17] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. And the way that it would have played out, there's deeper, more day-to-day ways, but one very simple one is following the very best job to whatever country or city it happened to be placed in. [00:30:39] Alberto Huerta: So that's one way that I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family. I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally. [00:31:14] Alberto Huerta: God has been graceful. And 27 years later I'm so glad to have such a wonderful wife and family that I can enjoy every day and be able to take action on that learning as I look to the future. [00:31:29] Tommy Thomas: If you could give a younger version of yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:31:39] Alberto Huerta: It's not about you. God says that we are to die to ourselves and be able to live for him. And I think that is really at the core of a lot of our issues, whether it's looking disproportionately for ourselves, whether it's making happiness and comfort the overarching search for our lives. And we all know, especially those that are past their twenties, Tommy, like you and I, that there are tough circumstances in life. And one can't control or make life the walk in the park that we would want it to be, or the peak after peak adventure that we want it to be. [00:32:24] Alberto Huerta: And so being able to make it about God, about Him and about His glory and about how our lives can be a reflection of the love that He's shown us and the grace that He's shown us. That'll be my biggest piece of advice. [00:32:40] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. [00:33:05] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. [00:33:28] Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

[00:00:00] Stewart Severino: The leader that sits at the helm is going to have to be really intentional about how they look for that specific talent and they need to structure their departments or their organizations in that manner, in order to really stretch those dollars. [00:00:13] Stewart Severino: You have to be a strong financial steward nowadays. There's no reason not to be right with the talent that we have out there, so my suggestion to leadership is to stop building empires and start building communities. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:25] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Stewart Severino, the Head of Innovation for The Navigators. [00:00:34] Tommy Thomas: As of recent, one of the podcasts I've added to my feed is Purpose and Profit Podcast hosted by Dave Raley and Carly Berner. Stewart was a recent guest of theirs and listening to that podcast convinced me that I wanted Stewart to share with our audience. So I want to give a big shout out to Dave and Carly for the work they're doing with Purpose and Profit Podcast. [00:00:55] Tommy Thomas: So, Stewart, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:00:58] Stewart Severino: Hey Tommy, nice to be here. Thank you. [00:01:00] Tommy Thomas: So, I have to confess that earlier in my career, maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago, if you'd asked me about innovation and The Navigators, I'm not sure I would have put those two in the same sentence. But after knowing and working with Doug Nuenke, their most recent former President, it makes total sense now that The Navigators would have somebody at a senior level paying attention to innovation. [00:01:26] Stewart Severino: That caught my attention too. That was not more than 18 months ago. So, we're in the same boat. [00:01:32] Tommy Thomas:  We're going to talk a lot about innovation in the nonprofit sector and maybe if it's appropriate, maybe you can share with us some of the exciting things that The Navigators are doing in this area. But before we go there, I want to go back to your childhood and your upbringing, and maybe learn a little bit about, maybe how that got you to where you are today. [00:01:53] Stewart Severino: Yeah, you know, that's an immigrant story. My mom came to the US in the early 70s and she worked in a factory and raised us kids alone. You don't know any different right, you grew up with friends who were in similar situations inner city in New Jersey, I grew up in Newark. You know, high school was a good time. There was decent formation there because of, you know, some male coaches. That's always important. Even though you don't have a male figure at home, hopefully, you have some male influences in your life. So that helped to shape me early on as a male. And then, moving out of high school, college began in 1994. I went to a Jesuit university, for a little bit, but dropped out because of the dot com boom in New York City. So that was probably the best decision I made at that time. You know, kids are talking about that today, right? Oh, do we really need college? [00:02:46] Stewart Severino: We can just get a certification. And that's kind of what was going on back then. We had to make it up as we went along because we were building it as we were building strategies. So it was an exciting time. And then, I would return later on to academia and complete my degree, my master's at Dallas Theological Seminary. [00:03:04] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like? Did you play athletics or, in the band or any of that, anything like that? [00:03:10] Stewart Severino: Yeah. Wrestled, loved wrestling. The discipline of wrestling, the grit, that kind of physical and perseverance set the pace for what would be my adulthood. [00:03:25] Tommy Thomas: When you started college in the beginning, were you on a technology track or you in general studies? What was that like studying at the Jesuit university? [00:03:33] Stewart Severino: Yeah, that's a good question. I went in as a biology major. I always enjoyed biology and I thought, oh, maybe I'll get into med school or, I don't know, something along the healthcare track. But, yeah, that went away pretty quick. [00:03:48] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned mentoring a little bit and male figures in your life. Who's been the most influential mentor to you so far? [00:03:55] Stewart Severino: Oh boy, you know, that didn't come till much later, maybe till around the age of when I was going back to church. Not that I ever really went, met my wife and she introduced herself as a Christian to me, and I didn't really recognize that. Growing up in the Northeast, you either know Catholic or you know Jew, and to hear Christian is a little different. So, going into this church, the senior pastor there really took attention to me and spent week after week with me even before I was a believer. And so I got to give that to him, you know, a really busy man having a relationship as a primary responsibility in his life, to his people. It just spoke volumes. [00:04:38] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice he ever gave you? [00:04:42] Stewart Severino: He says you're never going to know everything and be okay with that. [00:04:48] Tommy Thomas: Good words. Good words. I have a hunch that a lot of people might be like me and not necessarily put innovation and nonprofit sector in the same sentence. Am I right about that? And if so, why?  [00:05:05] Stewart Severino: That's a good topic to bring up because I think leadership is being forced to bring it up. Now you can't escape innovation. You can't escape AI. I think the phrase innovation is so broad and it has so many different meanings that it needs some real form. It needs some real function, some real definition by leadership. And yes it's not at the top of their list but it is being forced to the top of their list because they need to figure out how to do more with very little, especially in a nonprofit space, especially in donor-supported organizations. [00:05:42] Tommy Thomas: I was talking to Matt Randerson. You may know him, over at Barna, and we're planning an upcoming podcast on generational influences of the nonprofit sector. So maybe go there for a minute. Have you noticed relative to innovation any differences with the generations in terms of maybe creativity? [00:06:03] Stewart Severino: You know, you have to start looking at who am I hiring, right? Typically, my generation, Gen X, or even older, we tend to build empires versus building community. We come in and we want to staff up, right? We want an assistant. We want project managers that you can't function like that anymore. I still see it happening. It really bothers me what we need to start looking for in our younger generation are those who have hybrid capabilities. Are you a project manager? Do you have tech capabilities at a minimum? I think this younger generation will have that. And already does have that. I think the leader that sits at the helm is going to have to be really intentional about how they look for that specific talent and they need to structure their departments or their organizations in that manner, in order to really stretch those dollars. [00:06:57] Stewart Severino: You have to be a strong financial steward nowadays. And there's no reason not to be right with the talent that we have out there. There's no reason we don't have to be, so my suggestion to leadership is to stop building empires and start building communities. +++++++++++++++++ [00:07:13] Tommy Thomas: What about risk-taking from the different generations? [00:07:17] Stewart Severino: I see more risk-taking in a younger generation. Mainly because they've been hearing a narrative of failing fast. You know, and that comes with the lean startup methods and other innovative practices. So, there's more room for risk-taking with the younger generation. I think for me, for Gen X or even the boomers, you have your entrepreneurs. You have those risk-takers. I think they are few and far between. But those of us that are in place of leadership, we're going to the risk tolerance in moving forward with something that could be seen as risky to the rest of the organization. So, it really depends. It depends on the initiative. It depends on the talent you're using. It depends on if you have a method. [00:08:08] Stewart Severino: Do you have a process that is repeatable, that is predictable? You can take a risk, but we're not asking you to roll the die. We're asking you to come in, do something different, but do it within a framework. We're not here to just shoot from the hip or throw things on the wall to see if they stick. [00:08:29] Tommy Thomas: On your LinkedIn profile, in addition to innovation and nonprofit impact, you have the words scaling and sustainability. [00:08:37] Stewart Severino: Yeah, it's one thing to launch successful projects and pilots. It's another thing to get them to scale. And because now you're talking throughout the organization, you're talking about resources. And so, scaling is probably at the top of your list of success. For example, Navigators. We have this age-old issue, not just Navigators, but all of Christianity. We have this age-old issue of scaling discipleship. You can't possibly disciple more than one to three people, have a relationship, you know, beyond that. And so scaling discipleship, in this example, has always been an issue. [00:09:20] Stewart Severino: So how do we solve for that? Back in a day in the 40s, Billy Graham went to Dawson Trotman, who's the founder of the Navigators. And he said, Dawson, I need your help. We're bringing 5,000-6,000 people per month to faith, but there's no follow-up. They're just coming to the churches, professing their faith and then what? There's no follow-up, right? It's like you getting a subscription and then no follow-up subscription, right? There's no accountability there from the company side. On this side, it would be how do you touch so many people consistently? How do you develop relationships? [00:09:51] Stewart Severino: And so scaling discipleship on that level is huge. And I'm so excited to be part of that. [00:09:59] Tommy Thomas: Does that tie in with sustainability? [00:10:03] Stewart Severino: So, the sustainability is how can you affect a business unit in a way that they continue to function the way they're supposed to, but also contribute to the whole, can I serve you? How do I come to you in a department and say, hey, what are your needs? How can I serve you? And through that, we explore efficiencies, and optimization, so you can do your job better, more efficiently, and at a reduced cost while you're contributing back to the organization as a whole. That's sustainability. [00:10:37] Stewart Severino: So, if I to go to a ministry and say, hey, how can I help you at the college level? Oh, well, I can't touch all of these students that are coming to me. I can only touch a small percentage of these folks. What do I do with the rest? Oh, let me help you with that. Right now, you're more efficient with your time. You have more time for your family. You have more time for ministry. And then those people that you couldn't touch before, they're being touched through other processes, through other automations, through other efficiencies. That's sustainability. We're now affecting two realms. And that one realm that you couldn't touch before is now contributing back to the whole.  That's sustainability. [00:11:22] Tommy Thomas: What are some mistakes that you've observed, in the nonprofit sector as people attempt to innovate? [00:11:29] Stewart Severino: Repeatedly. And I think this is something that requires indoctrination and it's kind of what I do, right? You have to go around and campaign yourself. This is a person-to-person initiative. It's going around shaking hands, kissing babies, being personable, and saying, here is what innovation looks like in a discipline dispelling their previous conceptions or misconceptions of innovation isn't all that difficult because when you expose them to a disciplined innovation, it really changes the way they view their world. [00:12:04] Stewart Severino: Typically, they view innovation like, well, I have this issue or we have these goals. Let's brainstorm. How many times have you heard that? Hey, join me for coffee and let's go brainstorm. No brainstorming comes later on in the process. In the beginning, it's understanding. Do we as a team, as an organization have a consensus on what the needs of the audience are? When you define that need and you have a consensus on it, that becomes your true north. That is your compass. You don't deviate from it. You don't pollute it with technology or a process or good ideas that comes later. Let's stay to the bare minimum. What is your need? [00:12:47] Tommy Thomas: This is gonna take us back a little bit and some of this stuff may not even be in play these days, I remember the last time I spoke at the outcomes conference at Christian Leadership I used this illustration from the 1980s, the U. S. Army came up with this acronym, VUCA, Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. later on, the Center for Creative Leadership had to come up with their term, RUPT, Rapid, Unpredictable, Paradoxical, and Tangled. Another writer coined the term BANI, Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear, and Incomprehensible. And then the people over at Oxford, not to be outdone, they said it was Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel and Ambiguous. Now all of these are addressing external changes. Let's go there a little bit with external changes, and how you've seen them impact the nonprofit sector. [00:13:44] Tommy Thomas: Have they either contributed or hurt innovation? [00:13:51] Stewart Severino: External. So, you know, it's interesting you bring up VUCA. I was trained, I used to work for a consultancy where these guys, were the first top gun pilots there in the first class. And so, they were very efficient when it came to process and organization. So, we've worked in the space and you may have heard this on the previous called high-reliability organizations. H. R. O. S. And so, the job of these is to minimize or reduce risk in an environment. So external risks on an organization. So how do we do that? How does an aircraft carrier run at such precision? When you have a team of young adults rotating every so often, it's the process, right? [00:14:39] Stewart Severino: It's the discipline of the process that keeps people safe. It keeps people from dying. Think about commercial airliners, think about hospitals, think about oil rigs, right? Think about the military. And so, there's such high precision, not because they're awesome, but because they have a type process. And so, for the nonprofit space, what can you do within your organization? You've got to take your time, which each with each department and analyze, hey, show me your process for X, Y, Z, whatever their tasks are. And when you take a deep dive into their process, you'll quickly understand. They most likely don't have a process. They probably have a bullet list of items. [00:15:20] Stewart Severino: Hey, we do this, then we do that. If this happens, then that happens. And that's okay. That's a great starting point. But until you fully fleshed out the ifs and thens, and the now what's in the work process of that particular department, you won't be able to fully understand what's going on. The possible risks that are going to come from the outside or even from within the inside, within the organization. So really taking your time and fleshing out your work process and throwing that word out there, because that's a real thing, work, process, get to it, use it, incorporate it. It'll protect you from not just everyday mistakes. Let's say marketing doesn't have a work process for their marketing automation campaigns. [00:16:02] Stewart Severino: We see this a lot when they send emails that you've opted out of already. It's probably because they're not checking against what's called a suppression list on the backend. You're supposed to be suppressed from that. There's no process that checks for that, right? it's a silly little example, but I think it works for this model for what I'm trying to say. So, risk from outside of the organization is just as real as risk from within the organization. And the only way to solve for that is by taking a deep look into the process of each department. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:16:32] Tommy Thomas: We've all seen the TV show Shark Tank. And I've been asking this question a lot lately. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank where the nonprofits were asking you for early-stage funding. What questions would you need solid answers to before you made that investment? [00:16:56] Stewart Severino: For a nonprofit, it's a little different. But first I would say, have you identified the market? Right. Basic question, but I think again, many entrepreneurs, I think many nonprofits jump to solutions, assumed solutions, assumed technologies. But my first question would be, have you identified your market? And so, you identify your market again by identifying a need. So, I'll give you an example. If I can identify a market by demographics, that's typically how most organizations run, especially marketing leaders. They'll say, give me the demographic data. I don't know, uh, affluent married couples in their thirties and forties. [00:17:40] Stewart Severino: Okay. Let's say this nonprofit focuses on providing marriage resources. All right. If the need of the couple is to have better conflict resolution and better listening skills, well that's a need, and that need transcends the affluent and the poor. So now we've identified a real market, not just affluent, because the poor, or the underprivileged will still consume those resources. And if you're offering free resources, that's only going to make your dashboard of success look even better because you're bringing in a larger audience. Sure. They may not convert in terms of dollars later on to how you would expect the athlete, but you're going to have a much bigger audience. [00:18:26] Stewart Severino: And with a bigger audience, you have a bigger platform. So, you know, my first look is “Have you truly identified a market” and “Do you even know how to recognize a market”? [00:18:36] Tommy Thomas: If you are creating a dashboard for nonprofit organizations' overall health what would be some of the dials on your dashboard? [00:18:47] Stewart Severino: Uh, well, one indication, this is going to sound cheesy. Um, the way to indicate health and organization is to have a healthy organization. So typically, we don't have HR-related things on our dashboard, right? We don't have the qualitative information. And I typically stay away from the squishy stuff, right? I like hard numbers. I like my return on investments. I like my lifetime value in customers. I think we have to start looking at the squishy stuff, like, uh, something similar to an NPS score, not a promoter score. We see companies use this all the time to have their customers judge their brand. [00:19:30] Stewart Severino: And typically, an NPS score looks like, how likely are you to refer this service to your friend? Scale of one to five, something as simple like that, right? We have CSAT scores, which are customer satisfaction scores. They function the same way. They are qualitative, not quantitative. So, for me on my dashboard, I would love to always have the pulse of the organization's health, because a healthy organization breeds a healthy organization. [00:20:01] Tommy Thomas: I always get people to respond to some quotes, usually they're doing it within the context of, their area of expertise. So, let's go there for a little bit then. Here's one from Steve Jobs. Marketing is about values. It's a complicated and noisy world, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So, we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. [00:20:31] Stewart Severino: I'm looking for the wisdom in those words. He's right. There's a lot of visual noise out there. There's a lot of audio noise out there. I think he's right. I mean, there's a desire there to stick out. I think that's every marketer's challenge. How do you stick out in this noisy world? So yeah, he's not wrong in that. Obviously, he created Apple. I mean, come on. He did a few things, right? I think if I had an answer to that, um, yes and amen to that all day long, but also, how do we see people, how do we have corporate responsibility beyond the tools we have given to them? [00:21:17] Stewart Severino: So, you know, iPhone came out in 2007, no real guidelines around ethics. The consumption is wild. And you only see that peaking today. It's just the addiction to the scrolling is unbelievable. And so, where is the corporate responsibility in launching something and then hand-holding your consumers throughout the process? Now that may sound, idealistic or naive on some level, but take it beyond Apple and apply that to your nonprofit organization. How much more value, how much more relationship, or how much more relational does your organization look to your audience when you bother to take the time to engage them? [00:22:06] Stewart Severino:  Beyond just your service as it relates to your service, right? So, looking at the iPhone example again, what if there were some careful pieces of content for parents who decided to give their children an iPad or an iPhone? What would that have looked like today any different? I don't know, you know, it's a human condition, but that's my point is, do we have a corporate responsibility? [00:22:30] Tommy Thomas: Here's one from Thomas Edison, genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. [00:22:40] Stewart Severino: How do you respond to that? Genius is 1 percent inspiration. And that's true, right? When you have an idea, what happens? It's like a light switch. You didn't think it through methodically, it just showed up in your brain. Right? It's like pop. You may have been processing it for weeks or days or whatever, but at one moment in time, in one second, something popped into your brain. And so that 1 percent is profound. And so, acknowledging that, right? And saying, wow, okay, where did that come from? What do I do with that? Yeah, so the rest of it is a lot of hard work. [00:23:16] Tommy Thomas: If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:23:23] Stewart Severino: If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. I was the worst at coloring, so, the picture always looked different for me, which is what helped me to never stay within the box. So I can appreciate that quote. I had problems with that growing up. I had problems with that in my career It never looked like how my bosses wanted it to look and I suffered for that. You know, I would jump around I always wanted different experiences. And so, when the guides in your life are saying, hey, longevity, longevity, longevity. When that was being told, there was something that bothered me about that. I said, I understand that. I understand the commitment, but I want variety, variety, variety. [00:24:07] Stewart Severino: And so, I would take two, three-year stints and rotate. And while you have recruiters shaking their heads at that, I'm like, this is going to serve me well somewhere. Because I have touched just about every vertical there is. And that cumulative experience has really helped the organizations that I have served because I get to borrow from other industries that I would never have touched before.  So, I appreciate coloring outside the lines. [00:24:38] Tommy Thomas: From Margaret Thatcher, you may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. [00:24:44] Stewart Severino: Isn't that our daily challenge? Every day, every time your feet touch that floor, you know, you're engaging in battle. So, the perseverance that is needed, comes from a strength that's definitely outside of you. [00:24:58] Tommy Thomas: Winston Churchill, to improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often. [00:25:07] Stewart Severino: Assuming you can get to a point of perfection, you'd have to change pretty much every single moment. [00:25:15] Tommy Thomas: Last one, Albert Einstein. Problems cannot be solved on the same level of thinking at which they were created. [00:25:28] Stewart Severino: Man, you're just throwing tough ones at me today. You know, and I have to say there's truth in that because it's like trying to use finite words to describe an infinite God. You just can't do it. Right. And that's why we have faith. That's why it's called faith. [00:25:44] Tommy Thomas: Let's close this out with a little bit of a lightning round. If you had a do-over in your life, what would it be? [00:25:53] Stewart Severino: Wow, that's like saying, hey, which is your biggest regret? How would you start over? Um, I think my biggest do over, my one do over would be, seeking mentors, and trusting in other older males to walk alongside me. [00:26:12] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would that be? [00:26:24] Stewart Severino: I'd have to say, seek humility, seek humility, you know, because a lot of the errors in my life have been because of pride. [00:26:48] Tommy Thomas: Is there anything about the overall, scope of innovation and organizational leadership that we haven't touched that you think would be good to include in this conversation? [00:26:58] Stewart Severino: I think for those that have a deep desire, and a realistic interest in implementing innovation or a department of innovation in the organization, there has to be buy-in. There has to be buying at the top and there has to be a commitment once that individual or those individuals enter into the department, because the last thing you want is that one individual to be introduced and then have to fight an uphill battle. [00:27:29] Stewart Severino: So, we haven't really discussed or gotten into what it looks like from a cultural standpoint within the organization, but that's one of the first things I looked for before taking a role in innovation is saying, do I have support at the top? And what is that going to look like as I get going? [00:27:47] Stewart Severino: Will I continue to have support or am I going to have opposition or are there others that are just rolling their eyes like, oh, okay, one more thing, you know, that I have to deal with, right? Those are realities and we're human and we have enough on our plates. And so, these are questions that need to be thoroughly considered. [00:28:06] Stewart Severino: So, I would say at the highest level, if you're entertaining having an innovation department, you know, consider how much dedication and support you're going to give to this role. ++++++++++++++ [00:28:19] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes on our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. [00:28:43] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. [00:29:07] Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO The Navigators    Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts      

Distinguished Malaysian lawyer and full-time international arbitrator Sitpah Selvaratnam is our guest for this episode of ‘Spotlight on …' Host Gautam Bhattacharyya takes us on a journey through Sitpah's remarkable career, discussing the focus of her practice and the attributes she believes are necessary for anyone aspiring to become an arbitrator. The conversation then explores diversity, equity, and inclusion within the legal profession – pertinent given Sitpah's role as co-chair of the Asia Pacific chapter of the Equal Representation in Arbitration pledge. 

[00:00:03] Trina Fullard: I never intended to go to college to play basketball. It was not a plan for me. Academics was my focus. The day that the coach from college came to watch me play, I didn't even know she was there because he never told me until the game was over. And he said, I want you to meet someone, and that's when he introduced me to Vicki Staten, who was my college coach. And I just asked him, I said, why didn't you tell me that somebody was going to be here watching me play, he said, because I didn't want you to be worried about what's around the corner, I wanted you to stay in the moment. -- [00:00:41] Tommy Thomas: Our guests tonight are Trina and Kevin Fullard. Kevin took his B.A. in Psychology from Washington Jefferson College. He took his Master's of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from West Virginia University. [00:00:56] Tommy Thomas: He's the founder and principal at Unique Consulting and Professional Services, and we'll get him to tell us a little bit about that as we get in. Trina also took her B.A. in psychology from Washington and Jefferson. She took her Master's of Arts in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Maryland. [00:01:14] Tommy Thomas: Trina is the CEO, and President-elect at Charlotte Rescue Mission, but on June the 1st, they're going to remove the elect piece of that title, and she will become the President and CEO of Charlotte Rescue Mission. In full disclosure, I must say that I met Trina, our firm, JobFitMatters Executive Search, did the CEO search there. [00:01:39] Tommy Thomas: And as a part of our process we like to interview as many board members and staff members as we can to learn about the organization. And Trina was in my group of people to interview. As we got into the conversation, I just felt like I was talking to somebody that I had known forever and I just could see leadership written all over this lady. [00:02:00] Tommy Thomas: During the conversation, she shared a little bit about her basketball career and that her husband also played football. And I thought, now this would be a good podcast to get the two of y'all on together. So Trina and Kevin, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:16] Trina Fullard: Thank you. Thank you, Tommy. [00:02:19] Tommy Thomas: We've had a little sub-theme going here about the coaches in my life. We're going to talk a little bit about life and leadership lessons that people who've done well and intercollegiate athletics have learned from the coaches in their life. And this could go back to the coaches in grammar school on through college. [00:02:36] Tommy Thomas: If you haven't heard one of these kind of conversations before, that's our format. Before I dive too deep into that, maybe each of you tell me a little bit about your childhood and somewhere along the way, tell me how you met each other. [00:02:55] Trina Fullard: Okay. I'll start. I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and, essentially learned as a young child how to be a strong independent young woman. I'm the oldest of two siblings. I have a younger sister who I grew up in the home with, and so I was always a caretaker and looking out for her. [00:03:17] Trina Fullard: I had a really strong will to be the best at everything wanted to be. A straight-A student, wanted to excel in whatever I was doing and continued that along the way, all the way up through high school, and then my first experience, probably where I had a coach was probably cheerleading in Little League Mighty Might says, you would mighty might football players needed the little cheerleaders. Being a mighty mite cheerleader was my first experience at being part of a team and having to work with other folks for us to be good at something. [00:03:46] Trina Fullard: To root them on, but that was my first experience at being a part of a team and having to work with other folks for us to be good at something. So I'll let Kev talk a little bit about his childhood before we talk about how we met. [00:04:03] Kevin Fullard: I also grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, but I was closer to the inner city. [00:04:10] Kevin Fullard: Okay. So my experience was a little different. Because with the inner city of Pittsburgh, education originally wasn't the main focus. We had a lot of focus on sports because I knew there was a bigger place outside of that area. And just trying to figure out the path to be able to excel, to get out. So education became a piece of the puzzle as well as the athletics to be able to move forward and really just try to do better in life and be able to use that to go back and help the people that show them this is a pattern and a path to be able to exceed. Education and athletics showed me that there was a bigger place outside of the inner city and I could go there. [00:05:06] Tommy Thomas: Wow. And how did y'all get together? [00:05:09] Trina Fullard: We like to tell the story that there was a bet that I didn't know about. And Kevin is a year ahead of me. He graduated a year ahead. And when I got to Washington and Jefferson as a freshman, he was a sophomore. And there were not many black students on the campus of Washington and Jefferson at the time, about 1200 students and there were about 17 of us. [00:05:36] Trina Fullard: Oh, my, right? And Kevin inquired from some friends of his about, who's that young girl? I think with the incoming freshman class. [00:05:50] Kevin Fullard: Because I played football. We were there during the summer before the freshman students came in. So as the freshman class came in, we would look out of the window and see, oh that person over there. [00:06:06] Kevin Fullard: She looks cute. And we would try to find their names and pictures in the little freshman book to say, I need to get a little more information on her. [00:06:15] Trina Fullard: My book, my picture wasn't in the book, Tommy. I didn't send it in. And I'm not quite sure why. I think maybe our senior pictures weren't ready at the time. [00:06:26] Trina Fullard: So he had to ask around a little bit and what I learned later after we started dating was that one of the upper-class girls had said to him, even though you're asking about her, she's out of your league. She won't date you and they bet him that he couldn't get me to go out with him. [00:06:51] Trina Fullard: And so our first date during my freshman year was during the winter basketball season. He was at home on break from his football. The football season had ended. We had just ended it. So he called me and he asked me, what was I doing? And I said, oh, I just finished practice. [00:07:09] Trina Fullard: And he lived about 40 minutes from the college. He drove all the way back to the college. Knocked on my door, I opened the door, not realizing I had just spoken to him on the phone and I knew he was at home and I'm like, what are you doing here? And he said, put on a sweatshirt. We're going to go for a ride and I'm like, I just finished practice. [00:07:36] Trina Fullard: I'm not in the mood for going out anywhere and he was not going to take no for an answer. So we jump in the car and he takes me to an outdoor ice skating rink. Now I really think he's crazy because I'm like, it's the middle of basketball season. I've never been ice skating before. And you think I'm going to get on some ice skates so I can fall? [00:08:01] Kevin Fullard: This was the opportunity for me to see if she was really an athlete. Ha. Oh me. [00:08:09] Trina Fullard: So I think we sat in the car for about 20 minutes. Yes. Uhhuh. And he promised that he would not let me fall. And we got out, we had a great time and I probably fell more than she did. Yeah. But then, after that, it was a really good time for us to bond as two people, two young college students. [00:08:33] Trina Fullard: Trying to navigate through an experience that really turned out, I think, pretty well. 32 years going and we're still going strong. [00:08:44] Tommy Thomas: I think that's pretty good. I think that's real good. Yeah. So both of you then were on your respective athletic teams there. [00:08:52] Tommy Thomas: Were you both on a scholarship or did they have scholarships back then for your division or how did that go? [00:08:59] Kevin Fullard: For our division, we didn't have full scholarships, so they gave us partial scholarships. I think we both had some athletic scholarships, but also education scholarship monies that they were able to give us. [00:09:17] Kevin Fullard: And so that was the avenue we took to be able to pay for our time at W&J. [00:09:27] Trina Fullard: They were very creative because we needed academic money, then there also was a little bit of need-based as well. I'm a first generation college student, but Kevin's older brother was the first generation college student and he went to W&J and Kevin essentially followed him and he played football as well. [00:09:50] Trina Fullard: So his brother had started the path for college for his family. -- [00:09:55] Tommy Thomas: What do you remember about about your first coach at athletics? [00:10:00] Kevin Fullard: My first coach was during little league baseball. And I think he really just taught a lot about understanding the game of baseball and trying to figure out how to work together as a team. [00:10:17] Kevin Fullard: Because growing up, I had the friends in the neighborhood that we would play with and those were friends, but I realized becoming a part of a team was slightly different because now I'm working with and relying on people that really aren't my friends, but we have to work together in order to achieve a common goal. [00:10:42] Kevin Fullard: So that was a great job that the coach did to get us to understand how to build a bond together and understand which or what each person was responsible for so that we could work together. [00:11:00] Trina Fullard: So my first athletic coach was in high school. I started playing basketball only because a friend of mine wanted someone to be on the team that was a friend of hers. [00:11:12] Trina Fullard: I think I learned how athletic I was and how skilled I was at picking things up quickly and then being able to excel at them from my coach in high school. And then I also learned from him that I could learn how not to anticipate. Just be in the moment. [00:11:43] Trina Fullard: And enjoy the moment and don't get all, as we would say, get all crossed up around what's around the corner. And I say that because I never intended to go to college to play basketball. It was not a plan for me. Academics was my focus. The day that the coach from college came to watch me play, I didn't even know she was there because he never told me until the game was over. My high school basketball coach taught me not to anticipate, but to live in the moment. [00:12:12] Trina Fullard: And he said, I want you to meet someone, and that's when he introduced me to Vicki Staten, who was my college coach. And I just asked him, I said, why didn't you tell me that somebody was going to be here watching me play, he said, because I didn't want you to be worried about what's around the corner, I wanted you to stay in the moment. [00:12:33] Tommy Thomas: Good life lesson. [00:12:35] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. What coach has, do you think, got the most out of you? [00:12:43] Kevin Fullard: I think from my perspective, the coach that I had as my defensive back coach in college definitely got the most out of me. And I think part of it was because I was becoming of age where I understood there is more to the game than just the game. My college defensive back coach taught me that there is a lot more to football than the game of football.  He taught life lessons that extended far beyond football. [00:13:05] Kevin Fullard: And he really focused a lot on how playing football would relate to outside of the game. How the skills we're learning in football would transition into life experiences and life lessons. And that was a very important thing to learn at that time. So he's definitely the one that got the most out of me as an athlete, but I think myself as a person as well. [00:13:42] Trina Fullard: I would agree. My college coach pulled a lot from me. And as I said earlier, I started playing the game of basketball in high school and she believed in me enough to bring me onto a team knowing that there was a lot more growth that she could pour into and and then being a leader she pressed me into that leadership role into in my sophomore and junior year of setting an example. [00:14:13] Trina Fullard: And even on the bus, studying on the bus for younger athletes that came to see that, yeah, we're on the bus and we're going to, we have a four-hour ride to the game, but it's not about just sitting around and having a great time. There's still time to focus at some point. She would take me on her recruiting trips to talk to other players about what the experience was like at Washington and Jefferson, being on the basketball team and a part of the team and spending time riding in a car with her, listening to her talk about life and what life was going to be like after college. [00:14:50] Trina Fullard: She gave me a book when I graduated and said, do what you love and the money will follow. That book was instrumental for me to realize after undergrad that I had to go on to grad school and continue to education. [00:15:08] Tommy Thomas: So I think you've probably answered this question, but I was going to say at what point did you realize that your coach was trying to teach you more than basketball? [00:15:17] Tommy Thomas: And it sounds like it sounded like that was a reasonably early-on experience in your college athletic experience. [00:15:25] Trina Fullard: I think for me, Washington and Jefferson College and being so ingrained in the athletic space there we both also worked in the athletic office, so we were connected to all of the coaches and would support all of the teams, and so I think we both benefited from interacting with the coaches and life lessons sitting in the office, talking with them in the athletic office as they were just talking about, their families and hearing them talk about things that they were dealing with, we got that as a byproduct for the entire time that we were there. I know we worked in the athletic office for all four years. [00:16:17] Kevin Fullard: And I think for me, it may not have come until my sophomore year. And the big lesson that really stood out for me, and I use it a lot from a counseling perspective. Now I tell a lot of people, especially if I'm working with young kids I try to tell them egos are overrated. [00:16:40] Kevin Fullard: This is one of the big lessons that I try to work with young people on because as a freshman coming in, I felt I was a great athlete coming out of high school, but I wasn't a good teammate coming out of high school because I thought with from an ego perspective, I can do it all. Whatever the team needs, just rely on me. [00:17:06] Kevin Fullard: I'll get it done. And it took the coach through the freshman year to make me realize - No, we all have to be a team. And that came with, I think a lot more maturity. [00:17:24] Tommy Thomas: No matter how hard and dedicated you are to something failure is always an option. What did you learn from team sports about failure that's helped you in life? [00:17:37] Kevin Fullard: I think that the big lesson that I've learned with failure, and this goes back to, I think my little league experience playing baseball. I used to be a pitcher in little league and our team made it to the championship game. My grandmother was very influential in my life and I pitched what I thought was a great game until the last inning and I threw a pitch and gave up a home run. [00:18:11] Kevin Fullard: So we lost the game in the championship game two to one and I came home and I was crying and crying. Laid across my grandmother's lap and as a grandmother would do, she said, what happened in the game? And I explained to her, we lost. I gave up a home run in the last inning and I felt like I cost us the game. [00:18:37] Kevin Fullard: And my grandmother said to me, did you do your best? And I went in to explain to her I threw my best pitch. My best pitch was a curveball. I threw it. I thought it was perfect and he hit it out of the stadium. And my grandmother said, you threw your best pitch. That's all I've ever asked of you. Give it your best. [00:19:03] Kevin Fullard: And let the outcome be the outcome. Just hearing her say she was proud. I carry that through life. [00:19:14] Trina Fullard: Yeah. Failure for me resonates from one high school basketball game where we were playing this team that was considered to be like the powerhouse and at the end of the first half of the game, we had only scored 5 points and this is high school. [00:19:45] Trina Fullard: And I remember, I think it was something like 60 to five or something, and they didn't have a mercy rule back then. And so we went in the locker room and, the whole team, we're just like, we can't believe this, this is just ridiculous. And our coach said to us, listen, this is not about winning and losing. [00:20:09] Trina Fullard: It's about your effort. You may not score 20 points. But you, the team in here, you all have to set a goal and as a team together and you work together, you hold your head up and you go out there and you do the best you can. We just felt so defeated. [00:20:32] Trina Fullard: It took us a minute, we thought about what he said. And we set a goal, we said, we're going to go out there and we're going to score at least 10. So we're going to end up with at least 15. And we lost that game 103 to 35, but we had met our goal. And so the lesson for us at that time was together, even if we don't conquer, we're never going to give up and we're not going to hang our heads. [00:21:05] Trina Fullard: Because again, as Kevin said, we did the best we could. We were clearly outmatched, but we didn't stop playing. We didn't just pack up our little bag and just go home. -- [00:21:18] Tommy Thomas: It's often said that we learn the most when we fail in something, if that's the case, why are we so afraid to fail? [00:21:30] Kevin Fullard: I think people become afraid to fail, not necessarily because of what's in them, but I think they're afraid of the judgment that comes along with failure. And, I try to get people to understand we can't compete or do anything in life with fear and worry about how people will judge us. I think people become afraid to fail, not necessarily because of what's in them, but I think they're afraid of the judgment that comes along with failure. [00:22:01] Trina Fullard: Yeah, I think the same thing, even if I look at the failures in my life what was I worried about, what was what the story would be, if you will. And so that's where I think a lot of times looking inside and saying, okay. What do I want to come out of this? [00:22:26] Trina Fullard: What lesson can I learn? That's what I've always come back to is, okay, it didn't go the way I wanted. Okay, Lord, what's the lesson in it for me so that I continue to move forward? [00:22:42] Tommy Thomas: I've got two things on the legendary coach, Dean Smith from Chapel Hill. And one of his quotes was, what do you do with the mistake? Recognize it, learn from it, admit it, and forget it. [00:22:56] Kevin Fullard: There you go. Exactly. I would agree a hundred percent. [00:23:03] Trina Fullard: Don't forget the learn from it part though. [00:23:05] Tommy Thomas: In his book, it's how you play the game. The 12 leadership lessons of Dean Smith. David Chadwick, a local pastor there in Charlotte who played on one of coach Smith's final four teams writes the concept of team may be coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball leadership and society. Both of you work with a lot of teams. How has the concept of a team impacted your life? [00:23:30] Trina Fullard: Oh, man, I would say it developed me into becoming what I would say is a collaborative leader, understanding that I need to set the playing field. And establish the rules for the team and, as long as those are clear everyone understands what their role is, and we can accomplish great things. I think it also requires me sometimes to, if I look at a football field, to sometimes be on the sideline with the team, but then sometimes I need to go up into the booth. And I need to see from a different angle. But just collaboratively being engaged and being in it when I need to be in it and reflecting back and allowing the team to work. [00:24:22] Kevin Fullard: Yeah, and I think for me, from the team perspective, being able to look at the different players that make up the team, because I always believe we're as strong as the weakest link. And sometimes being able to identify people's strengths as well as their weaknesses is important in leadership and teamwork. [00:24:52] Kevin Fullard: Because if I know one person has a particular weakness, but we can rally around them to make that weakness not something that's going to make the chain break, then that's a great focus for us to be on. [00:25:16] Tommy Thomas: Another quote on team, a group is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator is broken. [00:25:27] Trina Fullard: I like that. [00:25:35] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, you have to you have to think on that. To let that one sink in. Let me go to risk for a minute. We all have taken risks. Some more than others. [00:25:45] Tommy Thomas: What's the biggest risk you've taken in life and how did it turn out? [00:25:55] Kevin Fullard: I would think the biggest risk that I've taken in life was the relocation to Charlotte from Pittsburgh, being able to move away from a support system, a network, because we didn't know anyone in Charlotte when we came down. I've never been to Charlotte, but I have family who live down towards the Wilmington area. The biggest risk that I've taken in life. was the relocation to Charlotte from Pittsburgh – moving away from our support system because we didn't know anyone in Charlotte when we came down.   [00:26:27] Kevin Fullard: So I knew I enjoyed the weather of Charlotte and I wanted to get away from the snow of Pittsburgh. Yes. And that was the biggest risk because I didn't have a job I came to find out one of my cousins whom I knew as a child, but we hadn't seen each other in 15 years, had moved to Charlotte, so just coming down and having faith that we're going to make this work, and I think it was good for us as a couple because we became the new team, the team that we had in Pittsburgh. [00:27:08] Kevin Fullard: Her team that she grew up with and my team that I grew up with was no longer. That team, they were that group in the elevator. We were now the team that was in the elevator. [00:27:25] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. You both have mentioned the faith in your life. As people of faith, how do you deal with your competitive streak? [00:27:38] Trina Fullard: I think this kind of might be one of the areas where we might be a little bit, a little different. For me, it is just relying on God to help me to keep it about serving him in a way that I can feel comfortable. Being competitive is not necessarily against the other person, but competing against myself. [00:28:07] Trina Fullard: When we go bowling, where we're a family of athletes bowling now has become like the thing we compete at. Our son is an avid bowler as well. But at the end of the day, it's about the ability to still be in God's grace and in a space and being. [00:28:29] Trina Fullard: Okay. I'm not maybe as much of a competitor as Kevin has been. [00:28:36] Kevin Fullard: Yeah, and I think that is where we there for some because my faith, whenever I'm competing, I've always remembered praying that everyone in the game would be healthy. I never wanted to get into a football game where we cause major injury to anyone. [00:29:02] Kevin Fullard: But in the game, it was truly competition of I'm out to win. There was no gray area. In my mind, and that was always the place I think I struggle from the faith standpoint because it wasn't just me competing, just enjoying my walk, it was me competing because I wanted to achieve this goal. [00:29:36] Kevin Fullard: And this was my goal that I thought the other team was keeping me from. [00:29:43] Tommy Thomas: It can be a struggle. Yes, it can be a struggle. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received from a mentor? [00:30:02] Kevin Fullard: I think from my standpoint, the best piece of advice came from my college advisor during my junior year. We sat down and he was talking to me about what path I wanted in life. And he could tell a lot of the career choices I was picking were very conservative. And so he asked me to tell him my biggest fear. [00:30:38] Kevin Fullard: And I told him my biggest fear was failure. And he sat down and really had a long discussion with me that holding on to a fear of failure will be the thing that would keep me from succeeding. Because I would never allow myself to push the limits. To see what other great things I could do. I would only try to achieve the simple things that I already knew I was good at. [00:31:15] Tommy Thomas: So was going to graduate school, was that a fear? Was that outside your comfort zone or was that something that you just knew you were going to do? [00:31:25] Kevin Fullard: Graduate school for me, wasn't something I knew I was going to do. I had this false belief of I'm going to get my bachelor's degree in psychology, and I was going to make 75,000 as my first job, and my advisor said to me, he said, okay, if that's your goal, I'm not going to tell you not to go for that. He said, but do me a favor, apply for graduate school. He said, I'll give you the whole summer to find the job that's going to pay you what you're looking for. And if you find it, you don't have to go to graduate school, but if you don't I win and you go to graduate school. So I told her I said, okay I'll take that deal and I searched, and the job that I found probably paid me about 20,000. [00:32:26] Kevin Fullard: So in the middle of December, I called my advisor and I told him I guess I'm going to graduate school. You win. [00:32:35] Tommy Thomas: What about you Trina? [00:32:37] Trina Fullard: For me I didn't really have, I would say, a mentor, that imparted some words, some wisdom on me. For me, it was my mom, and she passed in 2015. But the one thing that she would say to me, as I was going into high school, going into college, going into graduate school, when I became a mom, she would say to me this all the time. [00:33:05] Trina Fullard: She said, Trina, when people meet you and they get to know you, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be expecting that there's another shoe that's going to drop as though when they meet you, that's not who you really are. She said, I know there's not another shoe. Don't you forget that. So I've carried that with me throughout a lot of all these experiences that I've had in the last few years because I walk into a lot of rooms. [00:33:41] Trina Fullard: And I get stares or looks or people are wondering, oh who's she, why is she here? And I've had to get to know people who are trying to wonder, is this lady for real? Is she really who she says she is? And I just remember my mom, hearing my mom's voice saying, there's no other shoe. [00:34:02] Trina Fullard: Just remember that. [00:34:07] Tommy Thomas: Hopefully we've come out of the pandemic. That may be debatable, but thinking back on the lessons you learned in the pandemic what's the biggest lesson you think you'll take forward, that you thought I learned that we can do that next year, pandemic or not? [00:34:25] Trina Fullard: I learned resilience. Early on, right when we weren't really sure what the pandemic really meant and how it was going to affect people. I was diagnosed with Covid and had got it from a coworker. And this house went into like fortress mode. I was, locked in the room, literally anytime I came out, I had to notify everyone I was coming out of the room. The pandemic taught me resilience. [00:34:52] Trina Fullard: My husband treated me like I was in jail. But that we were faced early on with, this is a health issue. It's a health risk. Unfortunately, my coworker who I had caught it from passed away. So that put it like in our face. But we learned early on that our family was resilient and we could create our bubble and we could move from day to day and place to place. [00:35:20] Trina Fullard: And that we were going to be okay. And then we also knew as we prayed and we were like, okay, God, you got to cover us. We are essential workers. So there was no isolating and just, being in the house, we were still going to work each and every day. And so for me, it was resilient and that we could get through. [00:35:44] Kevin Fullard: And I think for me, going through that period of COVID was learning the fact of not being afraid of the unknown because no one at that time knew what it was going to be like. I saw on TV where they were having the trailers outside of the hospitals putting all of the dead bodies and there was that fear. ​​The pandemic taught me more about not being afraid of the unknown. [00:36:17] Kevin Fullard: But it also made me realize I was still going into hospitals, doctors' offices, meeting with my clients because they needed me there. And I had to overcome that fear of just focusing on myself and having faith that I will be protected, that God was watching over me, and that as long as I do His will, everything will be safe. -- [00:36:48] Tommy Thomas: Let me wrap it up with a couple of kind of closing questions. One, if you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself something, what would you say? [00:37:10] Trina Fullard: Don't look back. [00:37:12] Trina Fullard: Leave your past in the past and keep your eyes focused on what's ahead of you. [00:37:19] Kevin Fullard: And I think for me, it would be the people in your life who are meant to be with you will always be with you. That there are some people that you just can't bring along for the ride. [00:37:42] Tommy Thomas: Say you're invited to a banquet next week and this will happen to you many times in the next 15-20 years, you're invited to a banquet and you're sitting beside a total stranger. How do you start a meaningful conversation? Share. [00:38:01] Trina Fullard: There are so many options with that, Tommy. It depends on the setting, the event. But if I'm sitting next to a total stranger I would just say, hey, my name's Trina. What's yours? [00:38:19] Kevin Fullard: I think if I was sitting in the banquet, I would probably ask them, what's their role, what do you do? Because that's usually a big conversation starter. People can take that question in many different ways. And so that's a way that I always try to figure out what's important to that person's life. [00:38:47] Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them only one question, who would you want to meet and what would the question be? [00:39:03] Trina Fullard: If I could meet one person, I would love to meet Michelle Obama. And I would ask her what motivates her. What drives you to move the way you move? [00:39:28] Kevin Fullard: I think I would want to meet Nelson Mandela to find out how do you hold on to the thing that you believe when everything around you is trying to destroy that belief and that drive you have and to keep that passion to still deliver the message that you want to deliver. [00:39:59] Tommy Thomas: What small act of kindness were you once shown that you'll never forget? [00:40:22] Kevin Fullard: The act of kindness, and it's probably a very simple thing, but it meant the world to me was standing outside as a, probably a 10-year-old, nine-year-old. And we used to walk to the store and we grew up without a lot of money. And we were standing outside of the ice cream shop. It was a hot day and a customer who was walking in knew we didn't have any money to buy the ice cream and something as simple as she said, can you guys come in with me and help me carry something? And so we were being nice and we went in to help her. We thought she would have something big she needed to carry. And when we went in with her, she had us pick out an ice cream cone and she said, I just want you to carry this back outside. And that just meant the world to me because that act of kindness made me want to do those things for others. [00:41:47] Trina Fullard: For me, Tommy, right now it centers around the last few months that my mother was alive. She lived here in Charlotte and stayed with us primarily. And I have a group of friends that there are four ladies and they knew how tough that was on me. And so randomly, they would come to the hospital and just sit, it was like, they took turns, like just being that moral support. [00:42:21] Trina Fullard: And, for me, it was Trina go downstairs and get something to eat. I'll sit here with your mom while you go downstairs, she would be going for a test. One of them would be there and say, nope, I'll go down and I'll be there while she's going through that test. So you can have a minute just so that you can breathe and I knew they were my friends, but I think I really knew how much I meant to them and how our bond got stronger. Because that time for me was very hard and they were just there and I'll never forget them for how they just showed up at a time when I'm not really good at asking for help, but I didn't have to ask them. [00:43:09] Tommy Thomas: This has been a great conversation. Thank y'all for taking time from your evening to spend this time with me and the audience. And Karina I was thinking this afternoon, I want to circle back to you about six months after you've been in the corner office and we want to talk about what this first six months being the CEO was like. [00:43:29] Tommy Thomas: So I'm all for it. I appreciate that. I hope I have lots to share.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Charlotte Rescue Mission   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Kevin Fullard on LinkedIn Follow Trina Fullard on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

[00:00:00] Larry Lincoln: And I had some good mentors along the way. My very first supervisor in the military, his name was Charles Benton. I'll never forget him. He told me, he said, look - there are keys to success. You want to be professional. You don't have to know everything, but if you don't know it, be willing to find out and always be available, turn situations into not a no, but try to find win situations for people. [00:00:24] Larry Lincoln: And those are the things that have always stuck with me. +++++++++++++++++++++= Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Larry Lincoln. Larry and I have been friends for, I don't know, 15-20 years.  Larry, do you recall our first meeting? [00:00:35] Larry Lincoln: Yeah, I think it was back when I was still in Colorado Springs at one of the ministries there. So yeah, it's been about that length of time. [00:00:44] Tommy Thomas: And I remember when we had dinner, you and I, and your wife, and like my friend Bo Patton, the football player at Vanderbilt told me when he met me and my wife, he said, Tommy, you out kicked your coverage. And so, I'm going to say having had dinner with Dixie, you definitely out kicked your coverage in that merger. [00:01:03] Larry Lincoln: Amen, brother. So true. So true. [00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: Larry's been into the Communications and Public Relations field I guess his entire adult life. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to get him on the call. We'd say we've known each other a long time. I've watched his career. He is currently working with Compassion International. He'll tell us a little bit about his work there, but Larry, take me back to your early days.  What two or three experiences do you remember from childhood that made you into the man you are today? [00:01:32] Larry Lincoln: Wow. Yeah, my childhood was a little atypical, Tommy, not the standard one. As a kid my parents weren't together. They split up when I was a young age, and they did one thing other than having us, but what they decided is they knew that things weren't going to work, and they wanted the kids, there were three of us at the time, to be in more stable homes. I was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and my folks sent me up to live with grandparents in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, a little town outside of Pittsburgh. And growing up there, man, it was so special because my grandmother was a God-fearing woman. We called her Mother Mary, but she was the one who just embraced me. [00:02:14] Larry Lincoln: I'll never forget as a three-year-old, I remember sitting on the floor learning to read with blocks. She was just so invested in my life. And so, growing up together in that home and having her just pour into me was something I'll never forget. She was just a godsend. She was ahead of her time. She was very into trying to shape and mold me into being a godly man. She always used to tell me, I'd ask her as a young kid, Mother Mary, what do you want me to be? And she said, son, love the Lord and be a good man. And that was all that she ever asked of me. So, remembering growing up in that home, growing up in our neighborhood, the church was called St. John's United Holy Church. And she made sure that as a youngster, I was in that church and that was like an extended family for me, they were so close and so nurturing and loving and then finally entering the military. I think the military was easy compared to growing up in Mother Mary's house. [00:03:10] Larry Lincoln: The military that esprit de corps, that structure, that being a part of something bigger than yourself, that really appealed to me. So those are a few experiences, I believe, shaped who I am today. [00:03:24] Tommy Thomas: How'd you get from high school to the military? Was there a big decision mark there? [00:03:29] Larry Lincoln: No what it was I went off to college following high school for a brief period of time, about a year, but my grandmother was ill during my college, my high school time. And so, I finished school and was taking care of her. And I wanted to stay nearby. I was a baseball player for a time, and I really wanted to play baseball in college. I had a brother at that time who was in the Air Force over in Hawaii and he was doing well, but I couldn't leave her. So, I decided to stay close to home and take care of her and go to a local college there, West Minister College, in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. [00:04:05] Larry Lincoln: But then she passed. And then, as a youngster with all that stuff going on, and then of course, college getting expensive and stuff, I said, I wanted to take a break. And my brother was doing well in the military. And I said, oh, let me give that a try. So that's how I got into the military. [00:04:21] Tommy Thomas: Is that how you got into public relations and communications in the military? [00:04:25] Larry Lincoln: Yes, absolutely. I spent 22 years total in the Air Force and for the lion's share at that time, I was in public affairs, which was public affairs is the military version of public relations, I went to journalism school, and learned to write. I went all the way up through the ranks and held every job in communications, in media relations, community relations, planning, crisis communication, all that great stuff. And so, they give you a well-rounded education. That's how I got my start and I've been doing it ever since. [00:04:56] Tommy Thomas: So, what do you remember about the first time you had to manage people? [00:05:00] Larry Lincoln: Wow. I'll tell you in the Air Force, one thing about it is they send you, they give you a lot of training. So, you go to leadership school and all these things. I went to all those. They give you the theory of what you should do as a leader and how you should lead people. But when you step into that role for the first time, and sometimes some of the people around the same age as you. And you're being called to have responsibility and lead. It was terrifying at first because, wow, can I do this? But then at the same time, knowing that they had prepared you well, they trained you well, it was a matter of just stepping into that role with confidence and learning along the way. [00:05:40] Larry Lincoln: And I had some good mentors along the way. My very first supervisor in the military, his name was Charles Benton. I'll never forget him. He told me, he said, look - there are keys to success. He said, you want to be professional. He said, you don't have to know everything, but if you don't know it, be willing to find out and always be available, turn situations into not a no, but try to find win situations for people. And those are the things that's always stuck with me. [00:06:08] Tommy Thomas: Of course, I know a lot of the stuff you did in the military might be classified, but are there any crisis management stories you could tell that that turned out well? [00:06:18] Larry Lincoln: Do we have time? Tell me, one of the things is, yeah, I've been involved in enumerable crisis situations in the military and out of the military, and I think that they provided a tremendous platform for understanding what happens and how to respond. I learned early on that you are either in a crisis, getting ready to go into one, or you're coming out of one.  So, planning and preparation are key! [00:06:31] Larry Lincoln: Things like that. I've been involved in everything from plane crashes, the bombings, the Khobar Tower bombings, the Payne Stewart plane crash. A lot of different crisis situations, natural disasters, hurricanes, and things don't just happen. One of the things that I learned in that situation is that you're either in a crisis, you're getting ready to go into one, or you're coming out of one. [00:06:54] Larry Lincoln: And so, preparation and planning becomes really key. [00:06:57] Tommy Thomas: I remember the Payne Stewart crash and, knew a little bit about his family. What do you remember about that? [00:07:05] Larry Lincoln: I remember it was a national media situation where, if you recall, that plane was just drifting out there, and it was all over the television.  It was a very tense situation, and we didn't have a lot of answers because, at that point in time, we had to wait for some things to happen. But I remember just being captivated just like the rest of the world with that situation and being intimately involved in responding. I was at NORAD Space Command there in Colorado Springs at the time, and NORAD had those jets that were actually tracking and tracking that and were sent up to intercept that and let it play out. So, it was a really interesting situation. It was heartbreaking, but that's the level of crisis and things that we became used to in the military career. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:51] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to the nonprofit sector. Because you've spent some time with some good organizations in the nonprofit world. How does a nonprofit preparedness compare with the military level of preparedness for emergencies or crisis? [00:08:04] Larry Lincoln: Generally speaking, I think that the federal government and the military, of course, it's very institutionalized and sometimes in the nonprofit community we don't know what we don't know. And many times, organizations get caught flat-footed, but I think there's a lesson to be learned there that, like I said, if you go back to what I said earlier, that cycle, you're preparing to enter a crisis. You're in a crisis or you're coming out of one.  If you look at that, and that as a constant, it allows you to look at situations that you can prepare for. [00:08:35] Larry Lincoln: You can think about your vulnerabilities, and that's one of the things senior communications folks have a role, especially in PR being able to look out and forecast for an organization, what the environment looks like, what some of the risks and threats. I think we all have the ability to do that. [00:08:52] Larry Lincoln: It's just the consciousness and the intentionality of being able to plan. Nobody likes to be in that situation, but I think during those times when we're not, we should use those as opportunities to really look and get a good sense of our environment that we're operating in threats, risks, et cetera. [00:09:13] Tommy Thomas: In an ideal world, what's the role of the Chief Communications Officer? The Chief Communications Officer serves as a trusted advisor to the CEO in addition to serving as a brand ambassador and guardian of the organization's reputation. [00:09:18] Larry Lincoln: The Chief Communications Officer serves as a trusted advisor. They're responsible for key functions, such as advising your CEO, upper leadership on communication, engagement, goals, strategies, and issues. Coaching for top executives, strategic communication, engagement, planning, serving as a brand ambassador and guardian of organizational reputation. A lot of times I'd like to say that the individual who holds that role is also the conscience of an organization. They also foster visibility, and understanding of the operational objectives. One of the things that I think is really key to anyone in a communication role is understanding the business, and that's chief communication officer needs to understand the business, how it works, and the objectives in order to effectively communicate to external and internal audiences. [00:10:07] Larry Lincoln: And so bottom line, you'll want to serve to ensure organizational messaging, consistency to all of an organization's audiences, and that can be an umbrella function that covers things like corporate communications, media, relations, issues, crisis, reputation, and reputational, internal communications, things like that. [00:10:28] Tommy Thomas: What do you mean by the conscience of the organization? [00:10:32] Larry Lincoln: Many times, communicators, if you're really looking out at the landscape and understand your stakeholders, your publics, the people that you're working with. I like to take an attitude of if I'm a community serving in the senior communication function, and a lot of time operational decisions are made, I like to point out to senior leaders, you think about having an empty chair in that boardroom where you are and consider that empty chair being occupied by some of your stakeholders, be it the public, be it a donor. Be it an advocate. How would they feel? How would they react to what decision you're making? And many times, organizations think about how they operate, but they don't think about pulling the curtain back and having other people who are not in the organization understand how they operate. [00:11:21] Larry Lincoln: They take it for granted sometimes. So, if you use that approach and think about that empty chair and put a key audience there, how would they react? That's being a conscience and really thinking through the decisions and the postures that we're going to take because ultimately at the end of the line, those are the people that we're impacting. So that's what I mean by being a conscience and I think I'm a firm believer that organizations pretty much communicate how they operate. It just happens naturally. So, if you don't really think about those things, you're going to communicate in a vacuum and then try to play catch up to help key audiences understand what you really mean, what your heart is. [00:12:00] Tommy Thomas: Here again, in an ideal world, should the Chief Communications Officer sit on the cabinet, be on the same level as a CFO, Chief Information, or Chief Marketing Officer? [00:12:10] Larry Lincoln: Absolutely. It's vitally important that the Chief Communication Officer have that same type of relationship, a very close relationship at the top of the business, such as the CFO, the Chief Marketing Officer, and I'll tell you why. The CCO has to ensure continuously open and timely communications channels. There are a lot of things that impact an organization these days. A 24/7 news cycle that requires immediate response. The importance of reputational management and organizational branding. The need for alignment and integration of messaging throughout the organization. You talked earlier about crisis situations, the need for proactive and immediate crisis communication response. There are a lot of studies out there about chief communication officers. But there's one that talks about organizations with CCOs reporting directly to the CEO has the greatest alignment between corporate objectives, communications, and all activities. [00:13:10] Larry Lincoln: That involves engaging key stakeholders. Yeah, it's vitally important to have that direct peer relationship with some of those other C-Suite executives. [00:13:20] Tommy Thomas: You've done the communications piece and you've been Director of Public Relations. In broad terms, what's the difference between those two functions? I'll give you the definition of what PR is. It's the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the public on whom its success or failure depends. [00:13:27] Larry Lincoln: In broad terms, there's a lot of overlap, and think about the Chief Communications function, corporate communications, things like that as the umbrella. Typically, in the world that we live in now, public relations and I'll give you the definition of what PR is. It's the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the public on whom its success or failure depends. In our current framework of things, typically PR folks deal mostly with media engagement, and things like that. But they also reach beyond that to work with publics and organizations, publics and develop and maintain those key relationships. [00:14:08] Larry Lincoln: Think of the Chief Communications Officer who is developing the strategy. About how an organization communicates with all of its stakeholders and the PR function as executing that strategy for some specific audiences. [00:14:21] Tommy Thomas: Okay. I guess when you started, we didn't have a 24-hour news cycle or if we did, it was young.  How have you seen that impact communications, in general, and the effectiveness of corporate communications? [00:14:40] Larry Lincoln: It's definitely a challenge because there are a couple of challenges related to that. You're right in the past we did not have that 24/7, but with the proliferation of social media, it becomes an even greater challenge because now you have unvetted unfiltered experts on social media. One of the challenges of social media is that you now have unvetted, unfiltered experts who, on occasion, are sowing disinformation or misinformation.  That presents a challenge to the audience. [00:14:57] Larry Lincoln: Who rightfully in some cases maybe get it wrong, but in other cases are sowing disinformation or misinformation and so that becomes a challenge for our audiences because they're consuming this and some of them are very selective on what they consume. So, we have to really understand our audiences in many cases. We develop personas of different folks that we want to reach and understand where they get their information so we can tailor communications to get to them in a timely fashion. It's a huge challenge now because way back when we had three major networks, and they were respected. The news was then broadcast in a certain way, and now today with the proliferation of mass media, and social media, it's a huge challenge. [00:15:42] Larry Lincoln: And it makes us be able to want to be able to respond much more rapidly and be prepared. And that's why preparation and understanding audiences become so much more important. [00:15:53] Tommy Thomas: What is the biggest trouble a CEO can get into using social media? What are the downsides, maybe? [00:16:00] Larry Lincoln: Not understanding social media. And I think social media is a ripple. It should not be seen as something to avoid. Not at all. And there are some CEOs who just, I've heard of some who just refuse to engage in that. And they have to think of that as another key communication channel. They, just like you'd use media, just like you use internal, you have to plan for it. And so not having a plan, not understanding who the audience is, not really mapping out and being clear what you want to say and what you want them to do. Ultimately, everything that we do with communication, we want to move people. I tell people we want to move them along a continuum of awareness. Understanding acceptance and then commitment, and that's especially true in the nonprofit realm. You want to make people aware of what you do and why you make a difference in this cluttered world with all these different agencies that are doing many the same thing. And competing for the same audiences. why are we different? What's unique about us? Maybe we need to help you understand more about what we do and why it matters to you. Then you move them along that continuum to understand how it impacts them. What's in it for them? And then get them to accept and then commit once you can get them to that stage, then you can move them along and you can get them to do pretty much anything. But social media, I think you have to look at it as another channel that needs attention. It needs constant feeding of the beast, so to speak. You can't go dark. You can't start it and then just go dark and let weeks go by. You have to continue to talk. And it's like having a conversation at a dinner party. [00:17:36] Larry Lincoln: How many people would talk to you if you had something boring to say or nothing really meaty to say, and you just stop talking? They'd find somebody else to talk to. So, it's just another channel that needs to be harvested, invested in really intentionally worked with. +++++++++++++++= [00:17:54] Tommy Thomas: Oh, what kind of counsel are you giving young people today who think they might want a career in communications? [00:18:00] Larry Lincoln: I think the traditional liberal arts is always good. English, journalism, things like that, but also supplemented by finance and organizational management courses. The reason being it goes back to what I said earlier. The Chief Communications Officer must know the business – they must know what keeps the CEO up at night. [00:18:12] Larry Lincoln: I really think to be truly effective communicators have to know the business. They have to be able to know what keeps the CEO up at night. They need to be able to read the balance sheet. They need to know how we operate, because if you don't understand those things, how can you effectively communicate to key stakeholders? And so, I think those are key things, and I think to start out to begin their career, it's always helpful to start out in some writing capacity, I believe. Writing is the foundation of all communication, to be able to present ideas in a logical manner that's easy, that's understood to your audiences. I believe that to be the foundation. And then just moving through, like I said earlier, getting your experience in a lot of different areas. But I think those are some of the foundational elements for someone who desires to enter this field. [00:19:02] Tommy Thomas: Let's move over to team leadership a little bit, because most everything gets done in the context of a team.  Tell me what's the most ambitious project you've ever tackled with a team and how did it come out? [00:19:14] Larry Lincoln: I think that would be at an organization later in my career, a ministry organization. And this organization was a long-standing one that had a lot of different members for a long period of time. And over time, the members had started feeling like the organization had fallen behind and wasn't as relevant. And we had just built a communication and engagement department, and our job was to help communicate the new changes and new strategic direction to really make a difference to those key stakeholders. And so that was very ambitious because it had never been done before, because they had been so used to doing business the way that they've always done it.  It required some rebranding, reinventing the organization, and really modernizing it, and helping to show that it had value to to a newer audience. And so, rallying the team around that was easy because as a newly formed department, it was our opportunity to show what we could do and the value we could bring to the organization. So, we developed a strategic communication plan, a change communication plan for the organization internally, as well as an external plan that had a lot of different milestones to show people that how we were changing and what value we brought and so it turned out very well. [00:20:35] Larry Lincoln: We did some surveys after the fact. We had worked with another marketing company that assisted us and we found that the change in positive sentiment over that time from the time we started that campaign had really significantly increased. So, it was really, it turned out well for us. It proved the value that a strategic communication and engagement approach can have for any organization. [00:20:58] Tommy Thomas: If I could have sat down with your team, I guess during that or after that, and I asked them two questions, I said, first question. What is the most rewarding thing about working with Larry Lincoln? What would they say? And then if I said, what's the toughest thing about working with Larry, what would they say? [00:21:16] Larry Lincoln: I would hope they'd say the most rewarding thing is giving them the room to grow and to do whatever it is that they've been asked to do. I think a key recipe for success is not simply giving people responsibility, but giving them support, the resources, and authority to get done what they need to get done. And I try to do that. I try to empower folks. I think probably the toughest thing that they'd probably say about me is, and I think I learned this from the military too, is I will ask questions. And if I hear an answer that I don't think was well thought out. I'll continue to ask more and more questions and dig and drill down to the root cause. And I think sometimes that could be a little uncomfortable, but I think it's necessary so that we can really get to the bottom of what we need to do. [00:22:04] Tommy Thomas: You've served under a lot of good leaders and certainly currently now are serving in a great organization. As you look back over these leaders including the military people, what's the most defining leadership behavior? [00:22:18] Larry Lincoln: Oh, being accountable, being open, being transparent. I'll never forget. I was at one ministry in particular, that focused on senior leaders in the business world, CEOs. And this one CEO in particular told me, he gave me this story about how he was faced with some layoffs at a plant, I believe it was back in the Northeast. And he was the CEO, and he could have sent his senior HR folks to do that. But first of all, he felt that he needed to own it. So, this guy got on a train and went to that business location and personally met with every individual and thanked them for their service while he was giving them their severance packages, things like that. Whatever you must do eventually – Do it now! He owned it. But he also told me, he said, that whatever you've got to do eventually, do it now. And so that type of behavior was very much appreciated. He stepped into the problem, he owned it, he didn't delegate it to somebody else, the tough stuff. I have a tremendous amount of admiration for leaders who own that and realize it, and step up, and don't shirk or shy away from the moment. A leader must be willing to lean into the tough times and own them. [00:23:26] Larry Lincoln: There are a lot of tough calls in leadership, you know that. But I think as leaders, we've got to be willing to lean into the tough times and also to own it. And so that's a really good leadership example that I've seen. And then other leaders who give you the opportunity to grow and aren't afraid to be challenged and ask questions, things like that. [00:23:50] Tommy Thomas: What is the most dangerous behavior that you've seen to derail some leader's careers? [00:23:56] Larry Lincoln: Personally, I think I've seen some who want to be the smartest person in the room and don't want to take advice. And I think the perfect example of leadership is servant leadership. We're humble. We're placed in positions not because of how special we are, but because that's where we've been assigned at that moment in time. That's by the grace of God. And so leadership is something to be held and cherished and to nurture and not to be taken too seriously, in my opinion. And so I think sometimes the traps and leadership can be that we think that we've got it, we'll make the decision and we may tune out some really good advice because we think we may know better, I think being flexible, being adaptable, being open to feedback, and sometimes even criticism is the way to go because you want to surround yourself with wise counsel. [00:24:45] Larry Lincoln: And maybe not listening to that wise counsel. Having said that, if I may say for a moment, you were talking about communications thing. And that's 1 of the things I think that in leading communication and having the place of communication in any large organization, sometimes leaders make the mistake. I've seen it in the past of not listening necessarily to their communications folks. Not really involving them early in the process more so like a break-the-glass moment when something goes badly. If you involve the communicators early in the process, they can help develop a really good operating and communications plan. [00:25:26] Larry Lincoln: And then in the Bible, I think it's in Matthew, we talk about where a prophet has no honor in his own country. Sometimes the same holds true for folks inside the organization, not listening to them and being more prone to listen to consultants and things who may come in, but when there are people who are close by who know the operation inside and out and are closer to it. [00:25:51] Tommy Thomas: I was on the phone earlier today with a guy from the Barna organization. And we were talking about generational differences. We have a podcast coming up on that topic. And have you noticed any as it relates to communications, how you communicate with different generations in the workforce? [00:26:08] Larry Lincoln: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think paying close attention to those differences will help you understand because one size does not fit all just like one size does not fit all for separate audiences that you want to communicate with. You have to understand that the internal force represents an audience as well. There are different people that are in different stages of their lives. They come in with different opinions, different wants, and desires. And I think it's helpful to understand how best to motivate and lead them. You have to know those differences and know how people want information presented to them, how they want tasks assigned, how they want opportunities to grow, and it's going to be different along generational lines. [00:26:51] Larry Lincoln: Some people will need more instruction and more by the book. Some people just say, give me a problem, and let me figure it out. And you've got to be willing and comfortable with that because that's how you can get the best out of the different generations working together and playing on their strengths. +++++++++++++++++= [00:27:10] Tommy Thomas: I'd like you to respond to a few quotes here. The first one, Ross Hoskins of, I  forget the ministry, he leads some down in South Florida says “Surround yourself with people who know you better than you know yourself and will tell you the truth out of love. This is how we grow.” [00:27:30] Larry Lincoln: I agree. 100%. I think that goes back to what I said a few moments ago. We all have blind spots. We all have weak spots. And those people that you trust, that know you well, can speak into your life and pull you aside and say, hey, I think you might have got this a little wrong. [00:27:47] Larry Lincoln: You have to be willing to take that feedback, because they're speaking in love. People who love you and know you are going to be able to have that open dialogue with you and you benefit you only grow from that. And yes, I would definitely want to surround myself and I try to do that with people who know me well, and I can go to in a tough time and say, hey, what do you think? And sometimes I don't like what they say, but I accept what they say, because I know that they've got the right spirit, the right heart. And they're going to tell me exactly what I need to hear at that moment in time.  [00:28:20] Tommy Thomas: Here's one back to our topic of communications from Peter Drucker. “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said”. [00:28:30] Larry Lincoln: Yeah, most communication takes place on the nonverbal plane. I think studies show it's an alarming percent, probably more so like 67% I think it is, of communication is nonverbal. And so that's very clear. It's very true. That's one thing, for instance, when we're doing media training that comes out, that's one of the places that it really comes out. [00:28:52] Larry Lincoln: If you're media training someone, there are certain nonverbals that will contradict what you're saying. And so, you have to be very keen and understand that for instance, if someone's asking a question that you don't agree with and you're nodding your head, yes, but you're thinking, no, what's going to be communicated is the action. [00:29:11] Larry Lincoln: Yeah, that's very true. And another important thing about communication, I'll go a little bit further than Drucker's quote is assuming that it's actually taking place is a two-way street. And communication doesn't really take place until someone takes an action based on the information or message that you've shared. [00:29:30] Tommy Thomas: One from Booker T. Washington, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position one is reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome”. [00:29:40] Larry Lincoln: Yes, I would agree with that as well. I think when you look back to my own personal story, humbly, like I said, it all comes back to that three-year-old kid who was sent to live with grandparents. When I look back, my wife and I were talking one day and I said, I felt like I could be doing so much more. This was a time when I was just sitting around and thinking about things that I wish I'd done or wanted to do. And she said, oh no, she said, look at and think about where you've come from. Think about where you started and think about some of the things that you've had to overcome. That's the success. The success comes in the journey, not the position that you end up in, but what you've had to overcome. And by the grace of God alone, there are many things that I can look back and call them successful simply by enduring. [00:30:28] Tommy Thomas: This quote from Dr. King probably parallels that. “The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of convenience, but where they stand in moments of challenge, moments of great crisis and controversy.” [00:30:42] Larry Lincoln: I think that echoes something that my grandma used to tell me. She would always say that you can tell what's in a person and how they respond to when things are going badly. Everybody can respond well to good times. But what do you show forth when you're going through the tough times? What's inside of you is going to come out. And so if we have something that shows forth in us it should be the love of Christ. It should be that character that's imbued within us from having a walk with him. And so, understanding that's what should come forth in times of crisis and in times of difficulty, it doesn't mean that we enjoy them, but we know that we can get through the other side. [00:31:22] Tommy Thomas: Here's one from General George Patton. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity”. [00:31:32] Larry Lincoln: Amen. That goes back to the example of the different generations. I've always believed that, and I think that's something that was echoed and taught to me early on. That's one thing that I've tried to model is not trying to tell folks what to do or how to do it, rather give them a problem that needs to be solved and they will surprise you with their talent and ingenuity. People don't want to be micromanaged. People don't want you looking over their shoulder. They want to be given the freedom to grow and to express themselves. And so I believe in that as well, giving people an opportunity and encouraging them along the way. Really speaking life into that situation, they will surprise you. They'll probably come up with a better solution. And then when, especially in a group setting, all of us are so much better than just one of us. Think about all the different experiences, and the different talents that we bring to a group situation, and think about all the different options. So you have to be willing to encourage that and listen and put the best of us forth. [00:32:32] Larry Lincoln: So yeah, I think that's a great quote. [00:32:35] Tommy Thomas: This is a kind of a funny one, but I think it has a lot of truth. “The only person who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper”. [00:32:47] Larry Lincoln: That's a good one. I've never heard that one. I think you're right. I think change is hard. We get comfortable situations. People hate change. And I think sometimes organizations resist change. [00:32:59] Larry Lincoln: We've all seen organizations who will hire consultants to come in and give us their best guess and we'll get a binder and it'll sit on that desk somewhere in order to gather dust because nobody really wants to put the energy and into change. But change is necessary. Change happens all the time and every situation is changing around us. [00:33:19] Larry Lincoln: I find that it's best to embrace change. It's best to look for change. Not just change for change's sake but realizing that the landscape can never be constant. It's not going to stay the same. So, if we can anticipate change and then use it to our advantage, I think it doesn't have to be dreaded. [00:33:37] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, staying with change for a minute and thinking of technology and your profession, what technological advancement has, impacted the field of communications, either for better or for worse? [00:33:50] Larry Lincoln: It's happening right now with AI. The advances in AI are staggering. There's a tremendous opportunity, but there's also tremendous risk. One of the things for communicators is developing ethics on how AI is used because there are some downfalls with regards to bias with things like that, because it encompasses a lot of existing knowledge. It's not necessarily creating knowledge. It's synthesizing, and then it's learning. [00:34:19] Larry Lincoln: And the information that's come before, there has to be an ethical framework in how we use it. That is probably the largest challenge, the biggest, most significant challenge that communicators have, is the use of AI. You look around us right now, we're seeing examples of deepfakes, things like that, that are popping up. And those things, especially when you're using them in a social media context, it's hard to tell the difference. And so, it can have the ability to change perceptions of right and wrong. Communicators and corporations must understand AI. They must understand the ethical challenges and must develop frameworks and how we're going to use the tool. [00:34:59] Larry Lincoln: It's like any other tool that can be used correctly, and it can be used incorrectly. [00:35:04] Tommy Thomas: AI, I guess we referenced a little bit earlier that corporate CEOs shouldn't be afraid of social media because it's here to stay. I think the AI piece is already out of the genie's bottle. [00:35:18] Larry Lincoln: I will tell you that is correct, but there are those that are doing things about it. For instance, the Public Relations Society of America, an organization that I belonged to for many years, recently came out with an ethical guideline for AI for public relations practitioners, and it closely aligns with their ethics guidelines. [00:35:38] Larry Lincoln: You can't put your head in the sand. You do have to realize that it's here to stay, but you have to, again, we talked earlier in our conversation about the crisis situation. You're either entering into one, you're in one, or you're exiting one. So, if you take that approach and look ahead each company, each organization should be leaning forward into how AI may impact them and how they want to use it. [00:36:03] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you a couple of closing questions. And this first one, I take from Alan Alda in his podcast, Clear and Vivid, one of his closing questions is, if you were sitting at a dinner party next to a person that you didn't know, how would you engage them in a meaningful conversation? [00:36:22] Larry Lincoln: I think that there are things that everybody resonates with. You talk about their childhood, where they're from, tell me a little bit about what interests you, what brought you here. But I think there are opportunities in our world to find things that we have in common. There are so many things out there that are being evidenced as differences to drive people apart, but there are basic things that bring people together, and I think trying to find those conversational topics about what brings people together. Tell me about your kids. Tell me about your family. [00:36:54] Larry Lincoln: Tell me about your hobbies. What do you enjoy? How do you spend a Saturday? And everybody has a different answer, but those are topics that create a natural flow and conversation. And I think after that you start to realize that we're much more alike than we understand, and we even realize. Because we all have things that are so important to us, family things, hobbies, down times, those are the things that I would probably start discussing to try and get a better understanding of that individual next to me. [00:37:23] Tommy Thomas: If you could tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would it be? [00:37:27] Larry Lincoln: Oh, wow.  One thing I think I'd have a lot to tell my younger self. I think I would probably tell myself not to take myself too seriously. When you're much younger, you have goals, and you have things and sometimes you can be laser-focused to your detriment and not really take the time to enjoy life. It's a journey. And as you look back over the years, nobody's really going to remember how many hours you spent at work. They're going to remember the quality relationships that you built, the time spent with family. So, focus more on those things and the rest will come. [00:38:03] Tommy Thomas: This has been fun, Larry. I've always valued your friendship and I just was so glad when we were able to get together and get this on the calendar. So, thank you so much for taking some time with us today and just wish you the best there at Compassion. [00:38:19] Larry Lincoln: Thank you so much, Tommy. We appreciate you. I appreciate your friendship and what you do as well. And so again, thank you for the opportunity. [00:38:28] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes on our website www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. [00:38:52] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. [00:39:16] Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts    

[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: Our guests today are Burt Rosen and Liz Galloway. Burt's the former CEO of the Knox Area Rescue Ministries, or KARM as it's known in the area. [00:00:09] Tommy Thomas: And Liz is the Senior Director of Food Services. Burt was a guest, gosh, back in year one at Thanksgiving, I think, probably around episode 10 or 15. I have used this Shark Tank question a lot in my questions of people. And a few episodes back, we highlighted some of the responses and he called back and said, we actually did a Shark Tank thing at KARM. [00:00:35] Tommy Thomas: And I thought now that it would be great to have something that was real-time on the podcast. Burt and Liz, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:00:44] Burt Rosen: Thank you, Tommy. Good to be here. [00:00:46] Liz Galloway: Thank you. [00:00:47] Tommy Thomas: So Burt or Liz, I'm going to turn it over to y'all, but how did this thing get started? [00:00:53] Burt Rosen: Let me take the lead there Tommy, and then Liz will chime in where it makes sense. So let me take a step back. Before coming to KARM, I spent 17 years with Prison Fellowship Ministries. And when I joined KARM, I brought with me this desire to always want to innovate. [00:01:14] Burt Rosen: Always looking for new ideas. And one of the things I learned, not so much from prison fellowship, but from my time in the nonprofit arena in general, particularly in ministries, which is yes, it's a nonprofit, but it seems to be a little bit of a different animal was that there was a reluctance to spend money on innovation. [00:01:34] Burt Rosen: And a reluctance to spend money on employee training and development. Those always seem to be the things that would go to the back seat. And so, in my early years at KARM, we had more than our share of financial challenges digging out of a hole that the ministry had managed to get itself into. And so, once we got there, fast forward a few years later, we found ourselves in a wonderful position. [00:02:01] Burt Rosen: God had blessed the work immensely. And so we were now in a position of not only being in the black and staying in the black but having a few extra dollars to look at how we best spend to advance the ministry. And so our board chair, Dan Hurst, you referenced in fact, he and I did that podcast call way back when. [00:02:23] Burt Rosen: We talked about wouldn't it be great to use some of this money to further enhance ministry opportunities. And that's all Dan needed to say. And now I'll admit that I did a ready-fire aim here. I didn't go back and talk to the senior team and say, hey, wouldn't this be a great idea? I was just off and running. [00:02:44] Burt Rosen: And so, I remembered that first, I was a Shark Tank fan. Always have been for as long as I've been watching it. I also remembered those days as a kid when I watched the TV show The Millionaire and, I forget his name, the actor. He would come on and he'd say, my name is Michael Anthony. [00:03:00] Burt Rosen: I represent the late John Beresford Tipton and he goes through his spiel of giving away a million dollars. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could marry The Millionaire and Shark Tank and put out to our staff an opportunity to come up with KARM's next million-dollar idea? And we set aside the funds to be able to fund whatever ideas might come up. [00:03:28] Burt Rosen: And we'll come to that a little bit later on. But with that, we sent that video out to employees and invited them to participate in something that would go across the ministry because I knew that people like Liz had these great dreams, these great ideas of things they'd love to see happen, but often didn't get the opportunity. [00:03:50] Burt Rosen: This Shark Tank idea provided that opportunity. And so we put it out and Liz, you can certainly respond because you were on the receiving end of that, that first initial invitation. And then I'll pick it back up Tommy after Liz shares a little bit about what it was like to be on her end during that time. [00:04:10] Liz Galloway: Yeah, thank you, Burt. You just go through your day-to-day routine when you get into work and you're checking emails and, I remember very clearly that day when, the email came up and it said, KARM's next big idea and it's from Burt, so we open it and we're like, okay what is the next big idea? [00:04:32] Liz Galloway: So we go through this email and we're reading and it's just, for starters, it's just amazing to have a leadership in place that allows you to dream big dreams outside of the box and got deeper into the email and realize this is real. This is something that Carl and Burt are giving us an opportunity to take our part, our department of the ministry, and take it to the next level. [00:05:01] Liz Galloway: It was the phrase. So, if you had a million dollars to take your corner of the ministry to the next level, what would you do? And, of course, my first instinct, my first thought was a food truck, right? We feed close to a thousand meals a day here on the corners of 418 North Broadway. [00:05:22] Liz Galloway: And what can we do to take our ministry into the streets and get into the communities where people might not know? What we offer at KARM and so that's what got the whole food truck idea started just reading that email and just thinking, oh, my gosh, either Burt has lost his mind or this is serious. [00:05:44] Liz Galloway: It was just a huge blessing to be able to dream that dream. And then as Burt said, through the process find it come to fruition. [00:05:54] Tommy Thomas: So, you'd been thinking about this food truck on your own? [00:05:58] Liz Galloway: I have been in the food service industry for a long time Tommy and, food trucks at that time were just becoming such a hot commodity. [00:06:09] Liz Galloway: They really were. And I love visiting food truck parks. I love seeing, the next big idea, what people are doing, what's fresh, and what's new. And then you think, okay I work for a nonprofit, right? I work in the ministry world. That's not what we do, right? [00:06:26] Liz Galloway: We're feeding those here at the ministry, those in need. And I won't say I put it on the back burner, it's one of those things that you think about, and it just wasn't a good fit for the time. And so, when that email came through, that was just my first, that knee-jerk reaction, that first, punching the guy, you're like, oh, my gosh, what a great idea. [00:06:49] Liz Galloway: And so, it was not only just a food truck when you think food truck, obviously, you think for profit, right? You have to make the money to turn the key. But then what are some other opportunities, right? The idea that Burt sent out was how can it further your corner of the ministry? [00:07:08] Liz Galloway: And how does that tie into the ministry for a nonprofit? And in doing some research through this process that we were allowed to do Shark Tank style. I came to find out that there are other ministries throughout the country that do a similar ministry, but not quite to the extent that I was going to take it. [00:07:31] Liz Galloway: For profit. Yes. Outreach opportunities as well as culinary training opportunities for our guests here at KARM. It was a truck with three different folds into it. [00:07:41] Burt Rosen: Tommy, with that it wasn't just lives. So, we put this out and you don't really know what kind of a response you're going to get. [00:07:50] Burt Rosen: But the response that you just heard from Liz was very similar to the response from other employees as well. Oh, yeah. We're setting aside, money for the next million-dollar idea, the next big idea. And so, it took just a little bit of internal selling. To get this done. And once we put it out there, the ideas that came from other employees, including Liz, were just amazing. [00:08:18] Burt Rosen: And so in this process, Liz had a very limited time. So we put this all out in October as the year was ending, and they had to be ready. So we had to do our homework and whittle 42 ideas down to the top six and that was very difficult. So we recruited a handful of board members, all whom were very astute and successful business people in their own right. [00:08:43] Burt Rosen: They were going to be the judges. And so each person, including Liz gave a brief summary of their idea. Not the how, but the what. Here's the idea in a nutshell. Those board members saw the ideas depersonalized. They were randomly numbered so that the board members would look through them. And so, if you could imagine this funneling effect of getting from 42 ideas down to the top six. [00:09:13] Burt Rosen: Now, what happened was. Every time each person had a two week. I'm sorry. We gave them two weeks to get it on paper and get it in. So we wanted to create this sense of urgency, things moving quickly and not let it fall behind as things can often do. Then we found the next thing that created some buzz. As soon as someone submitted an idea. [00:09:35] Burt Rosen: They got a nice little thank you with a 50 Amazon gift card just for participating. And for those who decided to collaborate with someone else, because we set no rules. Those who decided to buddy up with another employee got an extra 50 gift card. So, here's your reward just for submitting an idea and being a partner in the ministry. [00:09:59] Burt Rosen: And now you've collaborated. So that was the next thing that we wanted to do. And Liz would have been the recipient of one of those Amazon gift cards. And Liz, perhaps you can talk a little bit about what was going on and then what you were hearing for other employees who were on the receiving end of those as well. [00:10:18] Liz Galloway: It definitely caused a buzz throughout the ministry. Like Burt said, there were so many incredible ideas that were submitted over this time, and, as the field started to get shaved down a little bit. It's in each step of the process. We were given a new challenge, right? [00:10:42] Liz Galloway: We had to budget our idea, right? We had to do a budget for our idea. We had to do letters of intent. For our idea. We're starting a new, a new business, a new venture. And we had to go through each one of those steps as a process throughout this whole time. And it was really fun. [00:11:04] Liz Galloway: It was fun. It was nerve-wracking as well, but it was a lot of fun to hear the buzz around the ministry and, who's doing what, and just our smaller groups just getting together and collaborating with each other. And it just really became a good feel around the ministry with the competition that we had going on, but we were all cheering for one another for sure. [00:11:27] Burt Rosen: Yeah, it was so awesome to see that. And a couple of byproducts from all of this. One, each person, including Liz, was assigned a mentor. Now, the people in the ministry who were submitting ideas had different levels of experience. Some have never done a grant in their life, and have never done any fundraising in their life. [00:11:47] Burt Rosen: And so, each of them was paired up with an internal mentor that they could choose to use at their discretion. So, we were getting some training in the process. We were getting cross-pollination of ideas in the process. And then, as that process made its way forward, the finalists were then told, okay, you're going to have until March 12th. [00:12:11] Burt Rosen: This would have been March 12th of 2000 and 21. You've got to do the feasibility study. But we also said, okay, set aside an escrow account for each of those people. So each individual was told you will have $3500 to spend at your discretion. So long as it's not illegal, immoral, or fattening, you could spend it any way you wanted to. [00:12:34] Burt Rosen: You're going to have to account for the funds, but there are no restrictions. You need to travel somewhere? Go travel. Do what you had to do. And one of the reasons that we're talking with Liz is because she was so innovative. She was so creative. And I can remember sitting in the judge's room, because now we're at presentation day, Tommy. [00:12:56] Burt Rosen: Our entire boardroom, which you have been in, went from its usual setting as a boardroom. We converted the entire thing to a shark tank stage and so if you've seen the show, I'm sure you have the person walking in down the hallways with the music in the background. They stand on their little X on the spot and they say good evening sharks. That's exactly what was happening here. Our panel of judges was set aside just like the Sharks are and there was enough stage space for each person to come in and present their idea. [00:13:32] Burt Rosen: And so as we got through, they all did amazing work. And it was one of those things where you'd say, this could go in any direction. These ideas are so great, but I would have to say, even though I loved all the ideas, Liz took my heart away and I'll let her tell you what she did, how they got to where they were, and what she actually did the day of the presentation. [00:13:58] Liz Galloway: Oh my gosh. The nerves and the excitement and everything through the whole process. And it went over several months. And so there were highs and there were lows and there was all the anxious moments. And, finally, the day came to present, Shark Tank style ,and you're just like, okay, here it goes. [00:14:21] Liz Galloway: It's all or nothing. Jump in with both feet. It is what it is here. Here's the day. So I had actually, through all of my research and development and everything, I'm like, how do you present a food truck idea? I don't have a food truck. [00:14:35] Liz Galloway: I don't have a truck. Am I going to go in with a presentation or, I need something tangible to get their taste buds going. And so I found what you would call a child's size play food truck made out of cardboard. And so part of the spending that I did was to get this model food truck with our logos on the side with everything. It was the vision for what I had for the food truck. And it was, oh, I don't know, Burt, it was probably two, three feet high by, maybe three or, three or four feet long. So it was a good-sized food truck. And I turned the food truck into  a food cart, more or less, and entered the boardroom with my food truck, pushing it along. We had food to serve off of it for the sharks and then started into the presentation about the idea. And we had about 20-25 minutes to present our idea. [00:15:43] Liz Galloway: The whole time, you're just a bucket of nerves. I knew what I was presenting was something that could change the way food service was seen in the ministry and how it could help others in the community. And that was what my heart was really wrapped around and what I was so excited about presenting this food truck. It was a great feeling to be done once the presentation was over. Burt can tell you I'm not one that likes to get up in front of people and talk, but it was a great feeling to have it done. I was very excited about the next steps to come after. [00:16:20] Burt Rosen: With that, Tommy you're welcome. I think your listeners will only hear the audio of this. If we were to put up the pictures and the video, because we videoed every single presentation to continue our purpose for training and presentation skills. Liz comes in with Howard, one of her chefs. [00:16:42] Burt Rosen: They're walking in and you had to simultaneously push the truck and the food tray cart underneath. And then they're going around and placing a food sample in front of each of the six panels six judges on the panel and everybody's tasting. I would dare say she could have gone on to the real shark tank and probably sold this idea. It was that good. And when all was said and done, we got to a place where, what's the idea that's going to be implemented? And the food truck was great because it was not easy. But compared to some of the others, you could say this could be up and running pretty quickly. [00:17:26] Burt Rosen: And because we had set aside the funds for this and escrow we didn't have the budget limitations. We weren't going to find ourselves in a position where, gee, Liz has come up with this great idea. But guess what, Liz, we're a little short on funds. We're not going to be able to follow through with it. [00:17:42] Burt Rosen: The day that Liz was told let's go she was off and running. Liz, talk just a little bit about what happened from there and then maybe take us all the way to the day when you took a team of people to go bring the real food truck back to KARM as we all stood underneath the expressway waiting for it to actually pull in. [00:18:07] Liz Galloway: Just to backtrack, when I found out that I wasn't ultimately, I think Burt had shared with you earlier, Tommy, that ultimately I wasn't the top number one winner. And in that moment when they announced the winner and like we said this process went over several months. [00:18:28] Liz Galloway: Emotions were high, emotions were low, we were stressed, everything was all over the place. And, at that moment when they announced the winner and I wasn't the winner, I was crushed. I was deflated. And I don't even know, Burt, if I've shared this with you, but I was ready to leave the boardroom. [00:18:49] Liz Galloway: I wanted to go to my car and just cry, right? Just let it out. It's over with. It's done. And I remember we were leaving the boardroom and Burt tapped on my shoulder and he said, hey, Liz, you got a minute. And I'm like, I just wanted to say no, I need to get out of here. And I said, yeah, and he goes, I need you to stay back for just a minute. [00:19:11] Liz Galloway: And I'm like, okay. Meanwhile, the board is still, the board members, the sharks are still in the room. And so everyone else had left and, they just sat me down and just said, we just wanted to share with you what a great idea that you have come up with the food truck. [00:19:30] Liz Galloway: We don't see that it takes a million dollars and we feel like we're ready to go ahead and let you move forward with plans to see this come to life. In a matter of five minutes, I was at the bottom of the barrel and then I was on top of the barrel again with my emotions. And in the next few minutes, literally after leaving the boardroom, you hit the ground running, you get your strappy boots on, and you go you've been given this great opportunity. [00:19:58] Liz Galloway: So where do you start? And so, I had been talking to and researching with a company out of New Brunswick, New Jersey Vending Trucks Incorporated, and had chosen them to be our builder. And, because it sounded like a great idea to work with someone that's 700 miles away from you while you're building a food truck. [00:20:20] Liz Galloway: But they were rated highly and I had worked with them through the process and spoken to them and they were a great company to work with. So, during all of this Tommy, there was something else going on - the COVID pandemic - during this whole process of building this food truck. [00:20:38] Liz Galloway: So, a typical build on a food truck, three months. It took us almost 15 start to finish to get this project done. You can only imagine the string of calls that, this piece of equipment is not available. This piece of equipment is going to be an additional four months if you want that one. [00:20:59] Liz Galloway: So, it came with its challenges for sure. But we finally got the call that, hey, the truck is ready. Come get your keys. You're ready to roll. So there was a team of us that took off to New Jersey to pick up the truck and to get it back home. The day that we pulled onto their property, the truck was just sitting out front. [00:21:28] Liz Galloway: It was, you couldn't miss it. And my heart just sank. I was just, beside myself, like, oh, my gosh, I had not. I had seen pictures. I had seen the process. We've done many video calls throughout the process of building. But there it was. It's sitting in front of me. I can touch it, right? [00:21:52] Liz Galloway: So before the car even got stopped, I'm like, I'm unbuckling. I'm getting out of the car and I'm running to the truck and I'm just like, oh my gosh, there, this is it. This is it. It's been an idea. It's been on paper. It's been, in video calls. But here it is. So, the folks from Vending Trucks came out. [00:22:12] Liz Galloway: We did a full day's training on the truck and before I could even start anything, I just went in the truck and, for starters, you just thank God for the opportunity that I had to be able to make this idea come to life. It was just such a moment. You just go, oh, my gosh, what? [00:22:39] Liz Galloway: How many lives can this truck change? How many mouths can this truck feed? And it was just a surreal moment to be in that truck. And I asked, I said, I need five minutes in here by myself. And then we'll start the training. So it was just a wonderful moment and to see the truck driving, driving up to it took us a couple of days to get back. [00:23:04] Liz Galloway: But once we actually got back to the main campus here at KARM, when we were pulling in at 418 North Broadway the entire staff, the entire team here at KARM was literally lined up on the sidewalks under the bridge, cheering us as we pulled in. It just melted me. It was quite a sight. [00:23:28] Liz Galloway: It was wonderful. [00:23:29] Burt Rosen: So I think it melted all of us, Liz. And I can recall being part of that group standing out there that day and we're just like cheering the truck in. We're seeing the fruition of an idea that's resided in Liz's heart for who knows how long that this process that we went through allowed it to get from dream to ideation to implementation. [00:23:57] Burt Rosen: And in a minute, I'll ask Liz to just share briefly some of what the food truck, they named it and what it's actually doing now as far as ministry is concerned. But before doing that. I don't know how I can describe the feelings for me, because this idea of fostering innovation, not being afraid to fail, and then actually seeing Liz's idea come, and Liz and I have visited a lot of places together as we've talked and dreamed about ideas, but this one was all hers all the way, and so it was an innovative concept, and now you're seeing it come to pass, and I'm reliving that moment just as we're talking about it because it's so special, but all of the ancillary benefits with other employees, the way it fostered further innovation, the way it created cross pollination and training and so on and so forth was what was worthy of replication. [00:24:58] Burt Rosen: But that's for another time. And maybe as we close, I can say a word or two about that. But let me turn it back over to Liz now so she can share with the listeners what has come out of that dream and maybe just a few sentences or so about the name of the truck and what it's now doing.  [00:25:19] Liz Galloway: The name of the truck was a contest within itself. [00:25:23] Liz Galloway: Like Burt put the idea out to us as a full staff, I put it out to full staff too. So let's get creative with the name. So you can imagine when there were 75 employees and I probably ended up with almost 150 different names of the truck that people had submitted. We actually went through a name change and we finally landed on Urban Table. [00:25:49] Liz Galloway: Urban Table, the tagline is, so all may be fed. And that is the true purpose behind the truck. So, all may be fed again if it was for profit. There it is generating money to come back into the ministry to help feed those here at the main campus, or if it is the outreach piece of it, getting into the communities where folks are in need and feeding them as well. [00:26:13] Liz Galloway: We're feeding their hearts, their minds, their souls and just really being just being the hands and feet in the community where. Where people might not realize what KARM does and what KARM has to offer for their guests in the community. [00:26:30] Tommy Thomas: We're recording this in February of 24. [00:26:33] Tommy Thomas: What's the truck doing today? [00:26:35] Liz Galloway: So yesterday we had our first rollout for this season. And very excited. You look at February and you just think, oh, February is just not good, it's just, it's cold, right? Nobody wants to go to a food truck. But people have been reaching out left and right, trying to get us on the books, and just very excited to see this year coming up. [00:26:56] Liz Galloway: The first year was a huge learning process. For myself and my staff, right? A food truck has always been an idea, right? It's always been in my head, but when you get it and you learn about this, it's a new business, right? Yeah, it's food service, but it's a totally new business. [00:27:13] Liz Galloway: So the first year had a lot of learning opportunities for us a lot of challenges. A lot of failures, and a lot of successes. We are back on the road as of yesterday getting the season kicked off and we are excited to work with folks and different organizations and churches, even in the community for events, as well as getting into those communities in need and just loving on people and meeting them where they are and feeding their souls for sure. [00:27:47] Burt Rosen: It's been a great ministry to watch it unfold and Liz has taken it to where it is now. We hear talk about food deserts. [00:27:58] Burt Rosen: And so, the truck is going to places where the homeless are living in camps, and no one's being charged for any of that food. So, you have an interesting model where a for-profit piece that can cater for income is offsetting the cost of being able to go to places where people can't afford to pay for their food. [00:28:18] Burt Rosen: But it's not only a brag on Liz. She has done this in amazing fashion, but it's also a little bit of a brag on the process and the KARM staff. And one of the lessons learned, at least for me, and all of this and I think for others along the way, is that if you can figure out how to tap the hidden treasures that are in the hearts of your employees, you quickly realize it's worth it. [00:28:46] Burt Rosen: That all the great ideas don't reside in the senior leadership team. They all have ideas as well, but when an organization can mine all of that and commit funds to R&D too often, nonprofits don't have the money set aside to do that, but you either have to grow or, if you're not busy changing, you're busy dying. [00:29:11] Burt Rosen: Sooner or later, you've got to figure out how to innovate and bring new ideas to the table. So, we were really excited about this and Tommy really excited that you gave us an opportunity to talk about it a little bit today. [00:29:24] Tommy Thomas: This is just, this is fascinating. This is the first time we've ever done anything like this on the podcast. [00:29:29] Tommy Thomas: And I just think it's been a great episode. I hope our listeners are taking note and if anybody else has done anything like this please let me know and we might tell your story. But Burt and Liz, so grateful that y'all could come out and join me today. And I'll put a link to this in the show notes and put a link to the, just a great ministry that KARM does in the Tennessee Valley. [00:29:50] Tommy Thomas: Thank y'all for being my guest today. [00:29:53] Burt Rosen: Thank you, Tommy. And if I could just in addition to thanks, let you know that there was a lot of behind-the-scenes work on this, a lot of preparation for all the judges, all of which we've kept. And if anyone was ever saying, hey, could you help us replicate that in our organization? [00:30:10] Burt Rosen: I'd be delighted to do that. You have my contact information, and they could just reach out to me. We've got all the forms, everything we did the whole step of the way.  [00:30:20] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, with your permission, I will share your contact data in the show notes also. So, we'll wrap it up from here, and just good luck and Godspeed on the rest of y'all's activities there. [00:30:32] Liz Galloway: Yeah, thank you so much, Tommy. It was a pleasure. Thanks, Tommy.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Knox Area Rescue Ministries (KARM) Liz Galloway – Senior Director of Food Services KARMs New Food Truck – Urban Table – Serves Knoxville's Entire Community Urban Table – so all may be fed   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Contact Burt Rosen for help on how you might use the Shark Tank idea in your nonprofit organization: burt@hopeholdson.org Follow Burt on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts    

Tommy Thomas: [00:00:00] My guests today are Michael Marquardt and Bob Tiede. Michael is Professor Emeritus of Human and Organizational Learning at George Washington University, and the author of 27 books on the topics of leadership, global teams, and action learning. Bob Tiede is the CEO of leadingwithquestions.com, a blog followed by people in more than 190 countries. Tommy Thomas: He also serves on the U.S. leadership development team for Cru and is the author of five books, including Great Leaders Ask Questions. Some of our listeners will remember Bob from earlier episodes when we discussed leader development within Cru. Gentlemen, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. Bob Tiede: Happy to be with you, Tommy. Tommy Thomas: Talking to the two of you today reminds me of an early experience with Nathan DiGesare, a musician and a videographer in Nashville.  Nathan has recorded probably 200 videos for my company, so I've been in his house and his studio on countless occasions, but early in the relationship, we were doing some voiceovers at his house.  We finished the work, and I noticed this Steinway Grand Piano sitting in the corner. So, I strolled over and sat down and did my best rendition of Bridge Over Troubled Water. And then I think I segued into Last Date by Floyd Kramer. Little did I know that Nathan had been trained at Indiana University and was a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music. And I'm not sure if I'd have known that if I'd have been so audacious to sit at his grand piano and play those songs. So, talking with you guys, yeah, I feel like here I am asking the questions and you two are the master of the great questions. So, this is going to be fun. Bob Tiede: We're looking forward to it. Tommy Thomas:  How did the two of you get to know each other and begin collaborating? Michael Marquardt: Bob, I think you can tell that story. Bob Tiede: I will. In 2006, my wife loves to go to bookstores. She goes all over the bookstore. She knows when she's done, she'll find me still in the leadership section. And what I usually do is try to find two, or three books I've never seen before, find a chair, sit down, and peruse them to see if I'm going to buy one of them. In 2006, I found this book, the first edition of Leading with Questions by Dr. Michael Marquardt. Perusing only a few pages, I said, this one's going home and it was a page-turner. I had no idea. I love books. I eat books for breakfast. Probably every leadership book I've ever read there's been a morsel in there. I had no idea that this would change my leadership forever. Actually, set me on a new path. I was already on the U.S. leadership development team for Cru. I began to teach out of it. The response was just amazing. Fast forward, to 2012, I start a blog and I'm thinking when I start the blog, I don't want to do just another leadership blog. I want to because there are so many good ones, I'd be a small fish in a big ocean. So I asked the question, was there a niche of leadership I could blog on? And as soon as I had that question, it was like, Oh, it'd be something with this leading with questions. So I go to WordPress. I've never blogged before and WordPress guides you through. The first thing they ask is what do you want the blog to be called. In other words, let's search and see if the URL is available. On a lark and I smiled as I did it, I typed in the title of the book, leading with questions, thinking that certainly the author or publisher may have tied it up already, but it was available. And at the cheapest price, like 29 a year, so I grab it. I'm saying I had a little queasy feeling wondering this guy, this author, Dr. Michael Marquardt, how would he feel when he finds out there's a blog by the same title of his book? So, I decided I'd blog for several months, and get some content. Then I crafted, I thought a very diplomatic email to Dr. Michael Marquardt, sharing that his book had changed my leadership, thanking him for writing it, sharing that I'd start this blog, and might I have his permission to excerpt from his book, we'd include a link to Amazon for purchase, and I sent it off wondering. How will he respond? And within 24 hours, I had the most gracious response giving me carte blanche permission. Several years later, Dr. Marquardt was doing the second edition and wrote me, asking if I'd do an endorsement and if he could list leadingwithquestions.com as a recommended resource. It's yes! And probably a year after that, we were taking a group to D.C. I reached out to Dr. Michael Marquardt ahead of time, asking if he might be in town, and if would he be willing to speak. And if he would, I'd buy the second edition for everyone. And then I invited him, could he come an hour early to sign the books? And I did that rather selfishly because It would give me an hour with him and during that time I'm calling him Dr. Marquardt. He quickly says, Bob, it's Mike. Just call me Mike and I said, okay Mike, and we've been friends ever since and about two years ago Bob calls and says, Bob, it's time for a third edition. Would you be willing to co-author it with me? And I said, oh my goodness. Of course. But Mike, you have a PhD, and you teach at George Washington University. I have a Bachelor's and Mike said, but Bob, your blog has now been out there for 10 years. We need about 30 percent new content in a new edition. And you've already done the research. Summer of 2022, we worked together for about six weeks. Mike is brilliant. He knew what from the second edition he wanted to delete. There are 10 chapters in the book. I would share with him 10 times as much content as he would need. So, he would have a bunch of things he could pick and choose. But Mike did the heavy lifting. He knew what he wanted to delete. He knew where he wanted to add. And this has been such a gift for me to be the co-author and I'm so grateful to Mike for the opportunity. Tommy Thomas: Mike, what'd you think when you got that first email? Michael Marquardt: I was happy that that someone was interested in adding a blog to the whole history of getting people to use questions and so I was delighted with that, and we've had a great relationship for many years, and as Bob indicated, with all of his blogs with hundreds of people who are leaders around the world, and getting them to talk about what kind of questions they asked, I thought was just, would be just a tremendous addition to the third edition to have all these new people, and so I'm very pleased that the third edition is out. Bob's a co-author, and we have probably another 15 or 20 leaders with their questions that were not in the first two editions of the book. 7:10:00 Tommy Thomas: Mike, how did you discover this Art of the Great Question? Is there a story there? Michael Marquardt: There's a story. I became a professor at George Washington University. In 1994, I had worked globally as a consultant in areas of leadership and organizational change, and team building, and in 1994 I became a professor at George Washington University in their executive doctoral program, so we trained leaders from all over the world, and as a professor, a new professor, you are asked to identify what's the research area of interest for you in which you begin publishing and writing and work with doctoral students. And my interest was leadership. Great leaders. That was my focus. Who are the great leaders around the world? What makes them great leaders? And over the first several years as a professor, I wrote a number of books and articles on great leaders. And the one thing I discovered is that all great leaders ask great questions. And they became great leaders by asking great questions. Whether these were people I interviewed, hundreds of people all over the world in my various research efforts I go into an organization, a great organization that was considered one of the tops in its field. And I said, who are the leaders in this company? And they would identify, two or three individuals and what makes them such good leaders, whether they're hierarchical leaders, CEO, or people within the organization. And inevitably, it always came down to, they ask great questions. And so that kind of moved my area of research to more focus on the qualities of great leaders and particularly the questions they ask. And so over the past 15, almost close to 20 years that's been my area of keen interest and research. And I do a lot of work in a field called action learning and the primary, right. The element of action learning in a way it solves problems is using questions, but questions is the way that leadership is developed in a way of becoming great leaders.  And so, I feel very fortunate that became my area of research as a professor and I met Bob Tiede along the way. Tommy Thomas: Litigators, journalists, and doctors are all taught to ask questions as part of their training. Why is it that business executives aren't taught that? I'll leave, I'll throw it to both of y'all. Michael Marquardt:   Yeah. I think, lawyers are taught to ask questions, but they never ask a question that they already do not know the answer to. So they are open and great questions. Those are, they're always leading questions. A lawyer is taking a task if he ever asks a question for which he does not know the answer that's poor lawyer, lawyerly. Doctors are not trained to ask questions. They're very poor at asking questions. Although it's a very important part of their work to do a prognosis and to ask for information about the patient. But many of them are very uncomfortable in asking questions, or they ask the wrong questions, or in an ineffective way, or a discomforting way, etc. So, I agree that medical doctors could greatly benefit from getting a course and asking questions, but my wife happens to be a medical doctor, and I do not recall that she took any course on how to ask questions. I don't know of any physician or school that does that. But I think you bring up not only lawyers and doctors, but we realize now that every person in life has to ask questions. Every parent, the better questions parents ask, the better parents they are. The better questions social workers ask, the better social workers they are. The better questions that interviewers or newscasters. So all of life is your status in life your quality and being a leader in that profession is dependent upon the questions. And we know that the great newscaster Walter Cronkite in the past, they were great at asking questions, not only the words they used, but the comfort, but they all listened carefully too. And because great questions come from listening. Your premise is that doctors and lawyers are important for them to ask questions, but I think what Bob and I have discovered is that every person in every sector, and every profession will be better if they ask questions. Bob Tiede: Whenever I speak, and I'm privileged to speak many times and love it. But I always start my talk with a confession. I get up and say, I need to start with a confession. And my confession is that for most of my career, I was a benevolent dictator. Because I thought the job of a leader was to tell staff what to do. The job of a leader was to give direction. And I did not have that paradigm out of evil intent. It was just, that's what I thought the job of a leader was. I did say benevolent. I grew up in a home where I was taught to say please and thank you. So Tommy, if you'd been on my team, I don't think I ever would have said, Tommy, go do this. It'd been more like, Hey, Tommy, this week we're working on this. It'd really be great if you could please do this. And when you did it, I would have said, thank you, Tommy, at a staff meeting, Tommy, stand up. You all need to hear what Tommy did. It wasn't until I found that first edition of Mike's book, the first edition of leading with questions and reading that. And it is filled with stories just like the third edition of leaders, literally from around the globe. And they're using and as I read that first edition, I had only one question. Why hasn't anyone ever shared this paradigm with me before? It immediately made sense. I immediately saw that a leader who leads with questions would be so much more effective. When I'm speaking, another illustration I use is I have a picture of a big canoe with room for 15 participants and they all have oars. And I asked someone in the audience I said, you're the leader of this group. And as you can see, there are oars for everyone on your team. And you want to get that canoe across the lake as quickly as possible. How many would you like to have row with you? Of course, the answer is all of them. And I say, now, I know that's a silly question, but I'm going somewhere. And I go to the next slide, and there's a picture of the same team, but now they're gathered around a conference table, and there's an opportunity on the table. And I say, now, listen to this question carefully. If you're a leader like I used to be, who thinks your job is to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity and then you'll tell them what to do? How many mental oars are in the water trying to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity? The answer is one. Only yours. But a leader who leads with questions, who leans forward, perhaps, makes eye contact with the whole team and then says, hey gang, here's this opportunity. What do you all think we might do? Now, how many mental oars might be in the water? Maybe all of them. And I ask whoever I'm interacting with, what are the chances that you might hear an idea better than anything you were thinking? And they always say hi, yeah, it's not a guarantee, but hearing all those ideas, it's highly probable. And I say, imagine across the table, it's Sarah. And she shares a brilliant idea, and you're thinking, wow, that's so much better than anything I was thinking. And so you say, Sarah, love your idea. Sarah, would you be willing to lead our team in executing that? And then I say, now, how hard will Sarah work? A leader who leads with questions can be so much more effective. They're hearing more ideas and now they're empowering and involving their staff in the solution. It's hard. Whose idea is she executing? Her own. That's just some of the reasons that a leader who leads with questions can be so much more effective. They're hearing more ideas and now they're empowering and involving their staff in the solution. So when it comes to executing, they're executing something that they participated in creating, it works. 15:17 Tommy Thomas: Let's get up to a hundred thousand or so feet and ask the big question, what makes a great question? Michael Marquardt: There's no single right answer. I think a great question is usually not the very first question that's asked. A great question usually emerges if you're in reflection or interaction with other people. And you ask the best question you can at that point, and then there's conversation, dialogue, and based upon what you hear, you ask another question. Many of us go through life never experiencing a great question, but if we use the ability to really trust and care about what other people are thinking and saying, ask them questions, and build upon what they say and what you've heard. I think it's possible to quite normally or regularly have great questions in a problem-setting situation or environment. But great questions generally are those that stretch people. They get you outside the box. They get you looking at things from a different perspective. And that's why all the time, great questions emerge in a group with diverse thinkers. You have an engineer and a marketing person and a religious minister or whatever. Have a great question merged in that group than if they are all engineers or they're all marketing people. So, you can conditions environments in a group setting as well as within yourself that they can emerge. And so, we've all had great questions in our life and they've changed our lives, but they've been very infrequent because we don't get asked as many great questions as are available or should be asked in our lives. Bob, you may have some other thoughts. Bob Tiede: I agree with everything Mike has shared. Something that I've discovered is that some of the best questions are so simple and whenever I'm speaking again, I ask who here would like to learn to lead with questions in 30 seconds. Every hand goes up. And, of course, I say the reason I'm asking this is I sense from my audience is they'd like to learn to lead with questions, but so many times they imagine they'll have to get a master's degree in questionology. It's a nice idea, it'd be nice to be a brain surgeon, and make that kind of money. But, there are no courses for brain surgeons in 30 seconds. So, every hand goes up, I invite somebody from the audience to come up and when they come up, I say, I think I selected, John here because he has a photographic memory and whoever I brought up always shakes their head like I don't. And I say all you have to do is memorize my four favorite questions. And I've got a second hand on my watch and I say, here we go. My first favorite question is, what do you think? Second, what else? Third, what else? Fourth, what else? And I say, do you have them memorized? They always do. I say, share them with us. And they always successfully do it. And then I say, now, some of you look a little skeptical. Like you can't ask somebody, what do you think? What else? What else? What else? And I say not in that rapid fashion. But first of all, you're going to add a topic to what do you think? What do you think we ought to do about? There's going to be some topic. And when you ask, they're going to answer. Now I used to look at this like I asked a question, and they answered, that's complete. What I discovered is that people, when they're asked to give opinions and input, they instinctively roll out a safe answer. Their first answer, they're testing the waters. Now [00:19:00] they're doing this instinctively. But just to see how it's treated. So, Tommy, if I asked you, hey, what do you think about it? And you give me that first answer. I said Tommy, that's stupid. Everyone knows that you're sorry you answered. But when I say, wow, Tommy, that's good. Say more. What else? You relax and you'll give me more and then again, instead of moving on, when you pause, I'm likely to grab a pen and say, Tommy, I've got to take notes. This is pure gold. Please say more. What else? And what I've discovered is actually on the third and fourth question that I get to their gold nugget, their very best thought. And I realized we've all heard the story of the proverbial gold miner, the guy who mined for gold all his life, looking for the gold vein, never found it, finally quits. Somebody came along later and discovered the old miner was within six inches of the gold vein when he quit.  Now, that's probably just a proverbial story, but I share, if you only ask people, what do you think? Get their first answer and move on. You're a bit like that gold miner. You got close, but it's what else is down there. And I'm not disagreeing with Mike at all. I'm saying another angle on asking a great question is the what else is where you hear more and discover that they've got some incredible things. You just had to help them dig a little to uncover some of those answers that you would not have gotten to if you only said, Hey, what do you think about. Get their first answer and then move on to just another technique to get their brilliance.  Michael Marquardt: I teach people how to ask questions. I have an activity in which they work in pairs, and you ask seven questions. You're allowed seven questions. I give them the first question. What are you most proud of? And then based on your response, you get six more questions. And I tell the people the question. I said you have the opportunity to change the other person's life. In seven questions, in maybe seven to ten minutes, you can change the other person's life, because if you listen carefully to each question, the response to each of your questions, by the seventh question, you're going to have a question that will cause that other person to see something they never saw before or understand something they'd never considered before. So, they put very high expectations, and they're amazed how, gee, here's something I never knew. And in 10 minutes, we're the best of friends because great questions always build friendships. This person understood something or made a decision or an understanding that never considered before.  Wow!  I love that. Tommy Thomas: Anybody who listens to my podcast with much regularity, they would as some have gently pointed out that the biggest weakness I have is the lack of follow-up questions. So this is convicting at too many levels, but I guess it's good to be convicted by two aces. I will be more deliberate about that. Changing gears for a minute. Earlier in the week, I was talking with Matt Randerson, the Vice President of Growth and Operations at Barna organization. And we're doing a podcast on generational influences on the nonprofit sector. And so, I guess the question I have is. Have you observed any differences in the kind of questions you might ask the generations or how you would frame a question between a baby boomer and a Gen X or a millennial? Michael Marquardt:   I have not. No, if you do, I've not noticed it. Of course, ask someone a question, a generation Z responds differently than a millennial or whatever age group, they are. And so, the first question may get a different response, but I think deep down, uh, a great question will have a positive, significant impact on any age person. Bob Tiede:  I totally agree that, as Mike said, the answers, and their response may be different. But what I've discovered is that all people, regardless of their age, love to be listened to. And another thing I've shared from time to time is that when you meet a new person if you do 80 percent of the talking, they most likely will mistrust you. But if you meet a new person and you let them do 80 percent of the talking. Almost always they will leave that time trusting you and you can think, how is this, we instinctively think if I can only tell them all the great things about myself, they will love me. But when you monopolize the conversation, they tend to think, who is this person? But when you inquire and ask them questions where they do the talking and you're listening, they feel affirmed. There's a quote I love and that is that being listened to and being loved are so close to each other that for the average person, they cannot distinguish the difference. And it's not that they analyze it, but when somebody is listened to it feels good to them. It's wow, I like this person who's showing interest. And I think that goes across all generations. 24:51 Tommy Thomas: I know both of you guys work a lot with teams in his book, How You Play the Game, the 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith. David Chadwick, one of his players who played on the Final Four team said the concept of team may be Coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball, leadership, and society.  So y'all work with teams. How has the concept of a team impacted your life? Michael Marquardt: I think, organizations cannot succeed without teams, successful teams that work together. And unfortunately, most teams are dysfunctional. They're frustrating. People prefer not to be in that group. When they're in the group, they're looking at their phone, or they're cutting off people, or not listening, and so forth. And if they do participate, they participate to the extent that they can try to control what the group does. I know best what the problem is, and I know best what the strategy is. Most people who work in groups or teams, spend their energy trying to convince other people through statements and expertise and power that this is the problem. This is a strategy. This is what we should do. Great teams do just the opposite. Members of great teams do just the opposite. So, when I'm a member of a great team, I spend my energy trying to find out what you think. So, Tommy, what do you think? We should do this problem, or what are your experiences? Where should we be looking? What resources do you recommend? So, I spend my energy asking questions of other members of the group to give their perspectives. We tend, we hear what we ask for, and we reject or filter what we don't ask for. And so what do other members of the group do to me? If I've asked them questions, they say, Mike, what do you think? And so great teams are composed of individuals who spend their energy asking questions of other people. And that's a team. If you would stop worrying or wondering, did I recommend this? Or am I, do I have the power? You come up with something that no one, it's a team. And so great teams spend their time asking questions rather than making statements. Bob Tiede: I don't know what I could add to that. That is that is so well stated. They're not adding to it but one of the things I talk about the teams can do is question storming. We hear about brainstorming, but there's question-storming. And in one way to do question storming that's unique is you state here's the opportunity. Here's the problem. And I need everyone on the team to write down five questions that we should answer in order to know what to do about this. And the reason you have everybody write it down is generally on a team, you have your verbal processors who are the first to jump in, and then you sometimes have your more quiet people. Okay. It's already been said. I don't think I'll add to it. And you don't get input from them, but by having everybody write down their five questions, you get everybody involved. And then maybe you tell them ahead of time, as soon as everybody has their five, we're going to post them up here. And now the team gets up, looks at all the questions and you can. Put five check marks, five votes by the questions you think are most important to answer. And then once you've identified those, the leader says, okay, here's the first one. Who here will take responsibility to go find the answer to this? And the second one, the third one, but it's a way of creating a questioning culture that the way to find the best way forward is to ask questions. And then question storming is an activity, but having everybody write it to begin with is a way to involve some of your staff that might be quieter, who hesitate to give input after the verbal processors have jumped in and shared their thoughts. 29:17 Tommy Thomas: Good work. So, I want to close out with a little lightning round. I've tried to glean some questions from some of my favorite podcasters. And I listened to Alan Alda's podcast Clear and Vivid a lot. And one of his questions is if you're sitting beside a total stranger at a dinner party. How would you start a meaningful conversation? Michael Marquardt: As I indicated earlier, a great question to ask anyone is what are you most proud of? What is some great success you've had in life? To give people an opportunity, because that question will reveal many things about the stranger or the partner, because it shows what their values are, what they're proud of. It makes them feel good to talk about that. It may take a little while to reflect, but that's usually a great question does take some reflection. You don't, it's a great question. Don't respond right away. It's probably not a great question. It's almost a closed question. So, I have found that if I have the courage to do that and great questioners have courage, and that's why a lot of us don't ask questions. We no longer have, we don't have confidence in ourselves, or we're afraid of asking a tough question or a great question, so that's. That's one I might use. Bob, you might have a few others. Bob Tiede: Oh that's a brilliant one. I call these kind of questions platinum questions. And we all ask a lot of questions because we don't know the answer and there's nothing wrong with that. Which way to Walmart here? They know, and I need to know. And nothing wrong with that question, but a platinum question is a question that as they answer, they enjoy answering. It's not a gotcha question. [00:31:00] And they say, I've never thought about this before. And they enjoy answering. And one of my platinum questions I love to ask is, what would you say are the three to four events that have most shaped who you are today? And then, listening. And I'm sure there's more that in that category and another one, I'd love to hear just your story. And again, listening uh, it's important when you ask these kinds of questions. To follow with what I call the gift of silence. This isn't, when you ask this question they're not likely to begin talking at three seconds. And research shows the average person only waits three seconds after they ask a question for an answer. And if the other person doesn't answer, they just move on. But when you ask one of these questions, like Mike's question, keep comfortable eyesight, but give them time to think because it's likely going to take them 10, maybe [00:32:00] even 15 seconds before they start speaking, but then you're going to be the beneficiary of a great story. Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them one question, who would it be and what would you ask? Michael Marquardt: I'll answer that one first. I thought Bob would say Jesus. If you could have the opportunity of asking Jesus a question, that would be wonderful. I think any of the great religious leaders would be wonderful to ask questions and certainly some political leaders, some scientific leaders. Someone like Elon Musk. I wouldn't mind asking him a couple of questions right now. He's done some amazing things over the last few years so it would depend upon the person, and the type of question I'd ask, because I obviously would ask Jesus a very different question than I would ask Elon Musk or, President Macron from France, or whatever the case may be. But depending on where they're from, that's, because I try to say this person has some unique perspective or background, and I don't want to ask him a question that someone else could answer as well or better even what's unique about this person. If I ask that question, I'll get information I could get from nobody else. Bob Tiede: Yeah, that's not thinking that deeply. One of the questions I love to ask any leader that I meet is what are your favorite questions to ask and, learn from them in that way. Michael Marquardt: The question I often have is, have you ever been asked a great question? And if so, what was it and why was it a great question? And that again, we all have been asked great questions in our life and it changed their life. Those are great questions, but we don't recall those questions immediately, or sometimes you have to wait an hour a day. And that was like, I should have answered Tommy that way, but I didn't think of that. And I remember when my father asked me or my second-grade teacher or, someone along the line, but all of us have been asked great questions in our life. We don't maybe remember the question that was asked at the time, but it changed our career or changed our values, what we do, but what changed our lives was a question, not some person saying your dad or something, do this or that. Generally, all of us changed our lives significantly when we were asked a great question. Oftentimes when I signed my, signed our book, I say, may your life be filled with great questions. Because that's the greatest gift anyone could give to someone else is to ask that person a great question. So if your life has been filled with great questions, you have had a great life, no doubt about it. Bob Tiede: Mike's, what he just shared there reminds me of something. One of my books, I did an author, it says compiled by Bob, is 339 Questions Jesus Asked. I was sure that it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who wrote those, I just compiled them. The thought was, Jesus wanted to see lives changed. But he knew, of course, he knew, he was God. But he knew that it would be far more powerful instead of saying, Tommy, let me tell you. Tommy, let me ask you. That then causes you to think. And you answered, he knew that your answer to his question had a greater chance of changing you than if him saying, let me tell you. And as I was hearing Mike there, just, share, it's yeah, asking, it's questions we've been asked that change us. Because as we were asked those questions, we focused on something that perhaps we, no other way would have focused or thought about, but then we answered, and we then thought it was our idea. And in some ways it was, but it was prompted by that question. Tommy Thomas: Last question. What do you understand about your life today that you didn't understand a year ago? Bob Tiede: Tommy, you do ask great questions. Michael Marquardt: I'm trying to think how my life has changed over the past year. And I'm retired. So, it doesn't change as much as others. But, my wife and I had a great trip to Norway a few months ago, and so I think the beauty of Norway and so it's raised a question. So I'm much more aware of and ask questions about nature and beauty and it happened to be a knitting cruise under the midnight sun was that and so I think that's maybe been one area that I have more questions about and am more appreciative of, and I spend being retired, I spend a couple hours every afternoon on our lake by our house and just enjoy the geese and the river and the water and so forth. Bob Tiede:   As I'm reflecting on it again, through Mike's gift to me, inviting me to be the co-author of the third edition, it was released in April. And it has, again, multiplied my opportunities to speak. It's a credential that has been a complete gift. Wiley Publishing publishes premier business books. I think if I knocked on the door all by myself, I might not have gotten in or even been considered, but because Mike had the relationship and they had already said yes, they would love the third edition. I rode along in the back of the car and got to this destination. But that's probably been just a used change to have another credential that is so well known in the business community and the privilege because of Mike of being a co-author of a Wiley-published book. Michael Marquardt: May I just share one more thing. I know we're ending it. A lot of people say I'm not able to ask good questions. I don't know how to ask great questions. I always say that we're all blessed at birth to ask great questions, all children from the moment they're born. They subconsciously ask great questions that enable them to walk and talk within a couple of years because great questions cause change. And then they, [00:39:00] when they start articulating, start asking questions, the adults around them, discourage them from asking questions. I'm too busy Johnny, or that's a stupid question or whatever. Michael Marquardt: From age three to some people for the rest of their lives until they die, they never get comfortable and confident asking questions because of what their parents and teachers have done to discourage questions because it's the joy of every child, every three-year-old child. They love to ask questions. They all ask great questions. And then, and so what we try to do and Bob and I are both grandfathers and we consider our most important job in life is to undo the damage that our children do to our grandchildren, because our children do the same thing we did, to encourage questions. So when we see our grandchildren, we say Grandpa loves questions. You can ask Grandpa any question you want. Because the most important thing I can do for my grandchildren [00:40:00] is to keep that spirit, that love of asking questions alive. When they go into four and five and go into the elementary school. Bob Tiede: As Mike has shared that thought, it reminds me of one of my granddaughters, Claire, when she was two, I discovered a  new way to connect with her. I would say, Claire, can I ask you a tough question? And that would draw her and she'd come sit on my lap and again, they were not tough questions, but they were fun questions. And then I'd say, now, Claire, it's your turn to ask Grandpa a tough question. And she would ask me questions and they were like, copycats sitting on a fence. If there are five copycats and one jumped off, how many are still there? And she would use that one over and over, but we would laugh. She is now a sophomore in high school. She is known by her teachers as the one who asks tough questions. They see her hand, okay. And she's not trying to get you a question, but they realized, wow, that is a powerful question. And she hopes now to become an attorney, but just something where, again, as Mike said, from little, we encouraged Claire to ask tough questions and affirmed her for asking questions. And I'm proud of all my grandkids for asking tough questions. Mike said, encouraging them to do some research showed that the average five-year-old asks almost 300 questions a day. The average college graduate only asks about 20. And it's a sad thing about our educational system that teachers will say to that five-year-old, Johnny, it's my job to ask the question. It's your job to answer. And so, they begin to realize school is about answering questions, not about asking. And where we could develop a skill that would change their lives forever by empowering them to ask questions.  Tommy Thomas: You guys must've been looking at my notes because I had one of the questions that I did not ask was if it's true, if it's true that leaders are better when they lead with questions, why is it that so few do so I think y'all have I think y'all have given a full a full response to that question. Thanks so much for being a guest today and I will include links to your books in the show notes and encourage people. Mike's book changed Bob's life. Take a look at these books and if you're alone, in the leadership journey I think you'll be greatly blessed. So, thanks to everyone for listening today. Thanks, Bob and Mike for being my guests.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Michael Marquardt Leading with Questions: How Leaders Discover Powerful Answers by Knowing What and How to Ask by Michael J Marquardt & Bob Tiede Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask by Michael J. Marquardt Now That's a Great Question by Bob Tiede   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn Follow Bob Tiede on LinkedIn Follow Bob Tiede on Facebook   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts    

[00:00:00] David Gyerston: So much of this begins with the reality that these presidential roles are too big for any single person to manage. We're always looking for the next Moses or David. And the reality is, there is no Moses or David anymore that can possibly handle everything that needs to be done. So I've stopped thinking about finding presidents and started thinking about teams that can make up the office of the president, which is a different perspective. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:28] Tommy Thomas (2): Our guest today is Dr. David Gyerston. David completed bachelor's level studies in theology at Lauren Park College in Ontario, Canada. Took his BA in Philosophy and Religion and Psychology from Spring Arbor University. He has Masters level studies in College Student Personnel and Sociology from Michigan State.  Masters level studies in Comparative Higher Education from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and Management from Michigan State University. All of these degrees were completed by a man who never graduated high school. At least not the way most of us did. In fact, one of his high school guidance counselors told him that he wasn't smart enough to graduate and he should drop out and get a job in the gold mines or the lumberyards. From this inauspicious beginning, David went on to be the President of three different universities. He and I have been friends for at least 20 years, and it's an honor to have him as our guest today. [00:01:33] Tommy Thomas:  Before we take it too deep of a dive into your professional career, take us back to your childhood. What two or three experiences do you remember as having shaped you best? [00:01:47] David Gyerston: Tommy, I am Canadian. I was born in Toronto, but I was raised in Timmins, which is about a hundred miles south of Hudson's Bay in a gold mining and lumbering community right on the Quebec border. And childhood was difficult. My dad was an alcoholic, and my mom had some really severe emotional and mental and physical problems. So, I ran away from home when I was 13. And a Free Methodist minister and his wife, who were pastoring a little congregation up there in the Great White North took me in off the streets. I lived with them for the next five years and had come to faith through their witness and ministry when I was about 14. But still had a lot of trouble. I never graduated high school, and don't have a high school diploma to this day. And one of the most profound experiences I had, other than my conversion experience, under Jim and Marion Tutelage, was my high school guidance counselor calling me in when I was 15 years old and telling me that, these were his words, David, you're just too stupid to be in school. You need to drop out and get a job in the gold mines or in the lumber yards, which were the two main industries in northern Canada at that time. And so I talked to Jim and Marion about it and they said, no, persist. The guidance counselor was correct. I flunked out in the 12th grade, never finished. But Jim and Marion felt strongly that God had a plan for my life. I didn't know what it would be, but the Free Methodist denomination had a Bible school and residential high school near Toronto, and Jim and Marion talked them into letting me in for one semester. So, I had to take some high school courses, and then started on the Bachelor of Theology degree, the three-year program, to begin preparing for pastoral ministry. And that's when I really came alive, not just spiritually, but also intellectually and academically. I really fell in love with the study of scripture and the disciplines of learning. And so those would have been a couple of major turning points for me that shaped me in my childhood.  I had the privilege of leading my dad to the Lord at the Salvation Army drop-in center in Toronto. He was out on the streets. I'd been pastoring in the city for a couple of years and went down to help the Salvation Army at their Harbor Light Mission. One night when I was preaching, my dad came in off the street, and I didn't know he was there, he didn't know I was there, and when they had the altar service at the end, he came forward. And the captain and I led him to the Lord and the Salvation Army took him in. He was a cook, and so he cooked for their officer's training college there when I was in Toronto. And with the problem with alcohol, it's a recidivism situation. And he fell off the wagon two or three times, but I believe he made a genuine commitment to the Lord. And then later I also saw my mom come to faith as well. So I was able to be reconciled to both my parents even though they never reconciled together. I trust that they're reconciled now with Jesus in heaven. Those are a couple of major anchor points for me. [00:05:14] Tommy Thomas: With that kind of backdrop, walk us through your pilgrimage to the PhD. [00:05:20] David Gyerston: I went to Lorne Park College, which was the Free Methodist School. Completed two years of the Bachelor of Theology degree when the school went bankrupt and closed. Those of us in that program had the option of either transferring to Roberts Wesleyan College or Spring Arbor College, and I ended up going to Spring Arbor, with about a dozen others from Lorne Park, and while I was there, I came under the tutelage of Dr. David McKenna. He took an interest in me and began to suggest that perhaps my calling, because I wasn't sure about pastoral ministry, was Christian higher education. And then when he left and went to be president at Seattle Pacific University Dr. Elwood Voller came from Roberts, interestingly enough, as president, and he picked up that mantle, and so he got me into a master's degree program at Michigan State, where he had previously been Dean of Student Affairs there, earlier in his career, and I finished up. I did a Master's in Sociology, Social Work, and Counseling. Then felt I needed to go back to Canada because I owed some service and went back to pastor a church in Toronto and did a second Master's Degree in Comparative Higher Education at the University of Toronto.  And so I was specializing in comparative higher education, comparing and contrasting the U. S. system of higher education with the Australian system of higher education. And again, not to get in the weeds, but the Australians were the first to really pioneer distance education. And so, they were doing a lot of education over ham radio in the Outback. It was really interesting to see how they began that distance-distributed education model that was later picked up in the U. S. systems. Then came back to Spring Arbor, working and teaching at the university, and pursued a Ph.D. at Michigan State, which was in administration and management, particularly focused on college and university administration and management. And then did a special cognate in the field of organizational communication theory and innovation theory. And then graduated with a Ph.D. in that area. [00:07:43] Tommy Thomas: So, I know you taught along the way, but think back to your first management job when you actually had people reporting to you. What do you remember about that? [00:07:52] David Gyerston: Woody Voller felt that I needed to get a lot of experience across the various administrative operations. And so, I was in student development, I was in admissions recruitment, and enrollment management. I was in fundraising in the area of writing grants and raising money, alumni relations, and church relations. In most of those, I only had a secretary reporting to me so my first really significant time of leadership came when I was invited to go to Virginia Beach to help start what was originally CBN University. I was one of the founding team members of Regent University and that grew then and we ended up with a significant number of faculty and staff. Later I was President and had those responsibilities and was invited then after that to become President at Asbury University and went there and led the institution for seven years and then was invited to Taylor University as President and led that institution for five years. And so that was the senior leadership journey went into semi-retirement, went back into teaching in the PhD programs and Doctor of Ministry or Doctor of Strategic Leadership Programs at Regent was in an endowed faculty chair. Then began my consulting and coaching work with the emerging Christian leaders during that time. I went out to California for a couple of years but one of my clients was struggling with an accreditation issue. So I took over the leadership of that institution to help them through that. And then we decided to retire back here in Kentucky. At Asbury, and with that known, the president at the seminary asked me to come back and be the founding dean of the Beeson School of Practical Theology. When I was here previously with David McKenna, I'd served with him as his vice president and was on the faculty at the seminary earlier on in my career before I went back to Virginia Beach, and that's too long a story to tell. But, essentially, we had gotten a $60 million grant from the Beeson family to start the Beeson Center and when Dr. Tennant at the seminary heard I was coming back, he wanted me to come back and revisit that and restructure it. So I was Associate Provost and Dean of the Beeson Center. And then the school, until just recently, when I finally, I never was going to fully retire, but I finally retired again from getting a paycheck and now I'm working, in the coaching and consulting and doing some teaching on the side. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:10:36] Tommy Thomas:  You've been a part of two maybe two quasi-startups. So I guess the Beeson Center was a startup, and CBN was pretty much a startup. When you think of a startup, in this case, a university or college, what are some things that are different than when you went to Ashbury and Taylor, where you had something that had been around a long time? [00:10:59] David Gyerston: Yeah, I sequentially, the startup was moving from Spring Arbor to Virginia Beach. Throughout my career, I've either been involved in start-ups, fix-ups, or ramp-ups and usually, it's three to five years in those various settings. And in my career path, essentially, I've either been involved in startups, fix-ups, or ramp-ups, have been essentially, and usually it's three to five years in those various settings. And in going to Regent, of course, it was ground zero and starting everything from scratch. There were three of us on the initial team, an academic leader, a librarian, and myself, for everything else. And of course, it's navigating all of the various governmental and accreditation hoops in order to even start a university, which took us a year, and then trying to decide where we would focus in terms of our curriculum. Initially, we felt we could have the greatest impact by focusing on graduate-level education at the master's level. Intentionally Christ-centered, we were looking for students who had a call in their life and needed a place to enhance their call. And so, we established what we thought were the six or seven major arenas where if we could find talented, deeply committed Christian men and women and train them well and put them into positions of influence, we perhaps could impact culture the quickest and the fastest. And so communications, and then education, and then business, and then counseling, then law. All became part of the original plan and within five years, we had all of those programs up and operating with a student body of around seven or eight hundred. Today, Regent has a student body of over ten thousand. It's 11,500 this past year both with an undergraduate and graduate program up through the Ph.D. [00:12:49] Tommy Thomas: So you've hired a lot of people and you've fired one or two probably. But when you're hiring at the cabinet level, what are you looking for? [00:12:57] David Gyerston: So much of this begins with the reality that these presidential roles are too big for any single person to manage. I've been doing a lot of work the last decade or more helping universities in transition, and particularly working with them as they try to figure out who they're going to need to lead them next. And particularly the last three to five years, the complexities have been so intense that it's become clear that there's no single person who can possibly do all that a president's office is responsible for. So I've stopped thinking about finding presidents and thinking about teams that can make up the office of the president, which is a different perspective. And so you begin with, obviously, the institutional needs. And there are some generalized needs that all institutions have, but there are some immediately pressing needs. When I am working with a Board on the on-boarding of a new president, one of the questions I am asking is “What are the essential big rocks that the President needs to move in the first 90-120 days on the job?” That are distinctive and unique to that institution. And so the president needs to be equipped to address those. Often when I'm onboarding new presidents, one of the things I'm working with the Board of Trustees on and the search committee on, are what are the essential big rocks the president needs to move in the first 90 to 120 days. Or there isn't going to be any institution left. And you've got to deal with the crises at hand. And that then determines, the nature of the president's ability to handle those. And in building a team now, in terms of the office of the president, the C-Suite that will support the President, you begin with what are the institutional needs, the most pressing needs at this moment, what are the skill sets needed to address those pressing needs. Do they exist in the president, or does the president need to bring around her or him, the team members that can bring the multiple different skill sets needed to address and resolve the Immediate crises and then the long-term needs of the institution? One of the things that we're finding, Tommy, is that the old model, which was the command and control, top-down, the person that went to the mountain and got the direction and came back and said, here's where we're going, that model isn't working anymore. In most institutions, let alone higher education institutions. And so in the faith-based community, of course, we're always looking for, the next Moses or David. And the reality is, there is no Moses or David anymore that can possibly handle everything that needs to be done. And so, one of the most important skill sets in a new executive leader is can that person understand their strengths and weaknesses, and do they have an orientation toward collaborative decision making and are they able to identify build and support a team then that can bring the various pieces to bear and that means a person that's not threatened by people smarter than them, and more equipped and talented than them. Usually in the C suite when I've been asked to help presidents identify direct reports, that's the strategy I follow. What are your needs? What are your skill sets, Mr. President, Mrs. President, meeting those needs? And what kind of team members do you need in order to complement and supplement yourself? And that collaborative model with a person who's very, and this is another dimension, very secure in their sense of calling to the position becomes really important, particularly for faith-based institutions. [00:16:32] Tommy Thomas: So, let's flip that over then, I know every now and then you've had to release somebody. How is that best done? [00:16:40] David Gyerston: I don't think there's any off-the-rack suit, and plan to do this. I think, obviously, it begins with a very honest, open and thorough assessment of where the individual is not performing effectively. Not everybody would agree with me on this. I tend to view a subordinate's dysfunction as my dysfunction. And it's my problem. What is it that I haven't done to ensure that this person is equipped, is empowered, enabled, and is supported to get the job done?  It's the old biblical idea. Let's look at the spec - beam in my own eye here before I start looking at the spec in somebody else's. And then it's a process of being sure that we've thoroughly communicated to the employee, the dysfunctioning employee, what the expectations are a lot of times people are surprised when they're fired because they had no idea what the supervisor was expecting of them because the supervisor had not communicated effectively, and there is now a lot of legal realities around due process and paper trails. And that's helped us, I think, as leaders, to be more thorough in communicating and documenting areas that need improvement and usually, I like to start with here's where some dysfunctions need to be corrected. Let's work together to figure out how to correct them. Here are the objectives and the performance measurements we're going to use and then give three to five to six months if that's possible. Sometimes you've got to let somebody go very quickly. If it's a moral failure or a complete incompetence failure, you may have to act more quickly. But I want to be sure before I fired anyone, that I had thoroughly communicated my expectations, and had laid out a thorough plan for them to be successful. And then after feedback over several weeks, a couple of months, three months, if that still wasn't making them successful, then to work with them to find a respectable and honorable departure and wherever that was possible and we had the financial resources, we always wanted to give people, a landing pad so that they could be assisted in finding their next place of employment. If a person is just completely incompetent, so much of this is attitude, I think, in bringing up children, often it isn't the behavior that we want to discipline, it's the attitude behind the behavior that we want to focus on and so for me, I'm always looking for is, does this person have a teachable spirit? Is there a sense of humility? The other thing to take into account is, and I've failed here a couple of times badly, where I left a person in a position too long in terms of hoping that they would course correct and I did damage to their team and their team members were hurt, frustrated several of them in a couple of situations end up just quitting because they felt like nothing was going to change. And I realized then that I've got to find a balance between giving time for people to perform effectively and recognizing when it's time. I think if there's any mistake I've made in my career, it's that I've not fired fast enough. Because so much grace was given to me, I think I tend to allow that to color my approach to people. And sometimes there's too much grace when more deliberate immediate action is going to be needed. ++++++++++++++++++++= [00:20:33] Tommy Thomas: I'll move over to team leadership for a minute. I want you to think of maybe your best team and then tell me about the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken and how you got the team to come behind you. [00:20:48] David Gyerston: Again, various opportunities present themselves at various times, some of those are unique opportunities that are positive in nature. We have the opportunity to receive a 50 million grant and we need to figure out how we're going to use that effectively. There are times when essentially, we're in crisis. And we've got to figure out collaboratively and in unity how we're going to deal with those crises. The one for me, which was most significant, is when I became the president of an institution, I won't name specifically, and walked into a very large building project that had failed miserably and they'd been trying to raise money for two or three years, it was a $25 or $30 million project, which in that institution's case was the largest they'd ever taken on, and they had only raised a couple of million. And so, we had to pull a team together to figure out why wasn't the money coming in? Because I tend to operate on the principle that if God ordered it, then God's going to provide for it. And if God isn't providing for it, then possibly he didn't order it. And so we went right back to square one on this particular facility. And again, without getting too far in the weeds, went back to a complete reassessment of the actual needs and what the facilities were going to be used for, pulled a massive team together of end users, as well as key people, including prospective donors alumni in that institution. And then relaunched we had to eat about a million dollars of costs on the old plan. But we launched it and within three years or less than three years, we had raised all of the money necessary to build the building debt-free. And so much of that was again, basically getting the right people, involved in the opportunity at the right time and place. And then giving them the freedom to bring their creativity and inviting them to make it happen. And that institution tended to look to its CEO for all of the decision-making. So, we had a culture change that needed to be made. And initially, people were uncomfortable being invited into a collaborative process. They were used to being good soldiers. The general issued the orders. And we marched on the hill and took it or didn't take it. This idea of participating in the design and decision-making and process was something that from a cultural vantage point had to be addressed before we could actually be successful. So I don't know if that gets at what you're thinking about Tommy, but that's just a process I've used. [00:23:39] Tommy Thomas: Going over to maybe back to general leadership, and we see I guess probably if you've been around as long as you and I have, you've probably seen a lot of leaders fail. What do you think is the most dangerous behavior or trait that contributes to a leader's derailing her or his career? [00:24:01] David Gyerston:   There are lots of ways to describe this, but I think basically a core sense of humility and understanding what your limitations are. I think most of the triage work I've done with leaders in crisis really comes back to their own understanding of their, or lack of understanding of their weaknesses and limitations. And so often the failure is the direct result of a blindness to those aspects of their leadership style, their decision-making that essentially, they weren't aware of. And some of this we define broadly in psychological terms as EQ, the ability to read the room accurately, to discern how we're coming across. A lot of times one of the manifestations of a lack of EQ is a talker rather than the listener kind of orientation, somebody asks a question and answers it for themself. I see that a lot, particularly in Western leadership. I've taught in Singapore, I've taught in South Africa, and there's a very different modality of leadership in those settings. We in the Western world have this great man, great woman approach. So, the leader of the belief that they have to have the answer for everything and they can never admit that they're not capable of bringing the answer or that they need help in finding the answer. And so that all boils down to a lack of self-awareness which often is manifested in a lack of humility to admit where a leader needs assistance and help. Sometimes that gets shown particularly in a relationship between a CEO and their board, where the CEO is not completely forthcoming, particularly with difficult news or bad news. And we say in college university administration that the boards of trustees only have one employee, that's the president, right? And they rely then on the president to provide them with all of the accurate and transparent information they need to make good decisions, and I would say about 75% of the time when I'm invited to help with a leadership crisis, it's been a breakdown in communication between the CEO and the board, and I have a situation where I helped with a senior executive level search where the top three senior executives were fired, and they were shocked they were fired, and the board of trustees was shocked they were shocked. Because they thought they were communicating effectively to the leadership team and vice versa, and they were just missing each other, so one of the first things we had to do before even beginning the search process for new leadership was to figure out how to help the board become more effective in communicating, but also in asking for the strategic information that was essential to the viability and fidelity of the institution's mission. A lot of presidents in higher education, basically their reports to the board are designed to prove to the board they've hired the right guy as president. And in reality, the board needs to see some of the difficulties and be presented with reporting that is actionable, that allows them to make their fiduciary decisions with wisdom, etc. [00:27:36] Tommy Thomas: Yes, it's been said that we learn most from our failures If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:27:44] David Gyerston: Again, I think it's a cultural expectation, particularly for leaders, that they have to be seen as competent and capable and successful. And I remember when I was pastoring in Toronto, pastoring one of our larger congregations in my denomination, and I was a young buck and a little bit too much full of myself. And I realized that, and one Sunday ended up having to apologize to the congregation for a couple of things that I had said and done. And they weren't moral failures or ethical failures, they were just, unwise things. As I stood at the door and shook hands with the folk as they were leaving, one of my more faithful members said to me, looked at me and she said, Pastor Gyerston, don't you ever do that again. And I said, what do you mean? And she says, don't you ever get up in front and tell us that you failed. She said, I don't want a pastor who is a failure. And so you've got this incredible sense of pressure that's on leaders that I think so often mitigates against us being transparent enough to admit that we are in need of help. You think of Moses, but he had to have Aaron stand on either side of him to hold up his hands. Aaron was the spiritual support. We think he was more of the operational administrative support person. And so, Moses could not have been successful in praying in that successful battle, had it not been for the fact that he admitted he couldn't hold his hands up until the sun went down. Unless a leader is willing to admit that he can't do everything and needs help, the tyranny of failure will be a part of that leader's administrative style. And then he needed people on either side of him to be holding up his hands. And so unless a leader is willing to admit they're in need then there's going to be this how is this tyranny of the fear of failure that's going to be a part of that leader's administrative style. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ As David shared, he has been the President of three different universities. You can only imagine the lessons on board governance, both best practices and some not-so-good that he has observed in working with different board chairs and reporting to different boards. Join us next week as we continue this conversation with David Gyerston.  Our focus will be Board Governance. [00:30:13] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes on our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.   Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn  

Tommy Thomas: Three years ago, I started a tradition on the podcast. I'm interviewing someone from the music industry for the episode being released the week of Christmas. My logic is that most people probably aren't doing much professional development this week. And rather than not have a release, I would default to something that is near and dear to my heart. I started taking piano lessons when I was seven. In high school, I played in a local garage band. In college, I sang folk music, and, in my twenties, I sang with a bluegrass group in Birmingham. In fact, one of the things on my bucket list is to play a set with the cover group, Jay and the Elders from Birmingham. So, Jim Blackman, if you're listening, I'm waiting on my invitation. Our guest this week is Dr. David Tolley, the Associate Professor and Director of The Music Industry Program at Delaware State University. David is a very talented composer, arranger, producer, and instructor. I believe you're going to love his story.​ [00:01:08] Tommy Thomas: Before we take too deep of a dive into your professional career, take us back into your childhood. What's your happiest memory? [00:01:17] David Tolley: Happiest memories of childhood. I'm one of eight kids. I'm number seven. And we were born, not really on a farm, but in Dublin, Ohio. [00:01:25] David Tolley: We had an apple orchard, chicken coop, and things like that, but it wasn't a full fledged farm. But we used to play Cowboys and Indians, hide and go seek. And playing with all my brothers and sisters probably was one of my favorite memories. [00:01:39] Tommy Thomas: What about the gifts your parents gave you? What's the greatest gift you remember? [00:01:44] David Tolley: Greatest gift or appearance? Probably the electric football game where you put the players on there and the game vibrates. Yeah. That was that. I had to think about that. I haven't thought about that in a long time yet. [00:01:56] Tommy Thomas:: Wow. We had one of those that was fun. [00:01:58] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. And what was high school like? [00:02:01] David Tolley: I went to Worthington High School, and it was great. I wasn't in the marching band or the choir because I was a pianist, and in junior year, Columbus started a brand-new performing arts school called Fort Hayes, and it was modeled after the one in New York and then one went down into Dallas. So it was experiential Columbus and it's still going, but went there my junior and senior year and half of the day to Worthington. So it was a lot of fun. I started composing for some theater things and other things. And I was valedictorian of the class when I graduated. But the only regret I have about that is I cut off my social life from my high school friends. Because I went down there at noontime and then was downtown Columbus. And you know how after high school, a lot of people, they have afterschool activities, and I was out of town. [00:02:56] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. I guess when you enrolled in Ohio State you knew you were into music by then. [00:03:01] David Tolley Yeah, I played sports, Tommy, and believe it or not, I used to play football and was quarterback and I played basketball and baseball, but I didn't grow to be huge, you know, like 6' 2”, 6' 3”. And so it started to hurt in middle school. So I got back into music heavy and I was just practicing all the time and I was lucky to get this pianist, Richard Telly Curtis, and he was head of the piano division at Ohio State and I got him in high school. I don't know how I got him. But he said he took me because I had a good smile. I don't know. I practiced all the time and that's performing arts school. They just kind of let me go and I would go down to the practice rooms and just practice all my whole time there. So I entered Ohio State and got a double bachelor's in piano performance and composition, and then got my master's in theory and composition before I moved out to Los Angeles. [00:03:55] Tommy Thomas: Had you started your PhD before you moved to Los Angeles? [00:03:58] David Tolley: Yeah, back then we were on the quarter system, so I had the first quarter and then I thought, wow, I'm only 21 or 22, I think. And I'm like, I'm doing my doctorate in music. I got into music to perform and to compose, mostly compose. So I thought, and I talked to my mom and I was playing at a church, Liberty Presbyterian Church, all through college and stuff. [00:04:22] David Tolley: They didn't want me to go and my mom of course didn't want me to go, but she actually gave me her blessing and packed up my rabbit and moved out to Los Angeles. [00:04:31] Tommy Thomas: Wow. Yeah, I can see Los Angeles. Back then, Nashville wasn't in the scene. I guess it would've been LA or New York probably your two options. What was the early days like in Los Angeles as a fledgling musician? [00:04:45] David Tolley: Yeah, it was scary. I tell these stories to my students because they have the itch in them, these young college kids, and I'm like, you know what, if it's really on your heart and you're passionate about it, you gotta try it now because you might be regretful later on. So I was scared to be honest, and because I only knew one person out there. I took every other thing I had in a VW Rabbit and I went to North Hollywood, and that was the year that they had Richard Ramirez, the Hillside strangler, and then all of the freeway shootings. I was like, what did I do? But after about a year, it settled in and I was fine. [00:05:25] Tommy Thomas: I'm going to probably not remember the details from how you told it years ago, but as I remember you told me that your brother came out to visit you one Christmas and y'all ended up at the Johnny Carson Show. Can you fill in the details there and tell our viewers a little bit about that? [00:05:42] David Tolley: Okay. So being one of eight kids, I was number seven, and my youngest brother was number eight. We pretty much grew up without a dad and so my mom thought, this is David's first Christmas away from home. And Christmas was a big thing, eight kids and the Christmas tree and gifts. So she was very wise and sent my youngest brother out to visit me. And for a week we went to the beach, we went to all these different things. The Hollywood Stars, Beverly Hills houses, went to where the Lakers played and everything. And then he had the idea to go, hey, can we go to The Tonight Show?  I don't know how to do that. [00:06:20] David Tolley: It was like his last day. And so he called up and he said, all you have to do is show up in line in Burbank and wait outside. So, we did after we had gone to the beach all day, and then we walk inside and we got in barely. And we were about three quarters of the way back in the audience. And it was Johnny's last show before he went on Christmas break the next day. And it was a Friday night, I think it was December 19th, 1985. And Johnny comes out with no preparation during the monologue, he said, you know what, you're all in the Christmas spirit, and we have a dilemma tonight. We scheduled this beautiful nine-foot Steinway piano that we had imported in for the classical pianist, Ori Gutierrez, who won the Van Clyburn Award. And the only thing is, he nipped his fingers because he shut his hand in the car door accidentally. His career's not hurt. But he doesn't feel like playing. And so, we have a dilemma. I'll let you know after the commercial break what we're going to do. And so he comes back, he goes, you know what? We're going to try something we've never done before. Is there anyone in the audience that plays a piano? And so I didn't even know what was going on. My brother raises my hand and before I know it, I have a Nike T-shirt and jeans and flip flops, and I'm playing on a nine foot Steinway for 28 million people. [00:07:42] Tommy Thomas: Wow. I'm just thinking what was going through Carson's mind. My gosh what a mistake it could have been. [00:07:49] David Tolley: Yeah, he actually mentioned that. Actually you can see it on YouTube. He says, wow, this could have been a real bomb. And actually, he picked a woman to go first and she played silver bells and she was good. And but he said, just in case she lays a bomb, is there someone else?  And that's when he picked me. [00:08:08] David Tolley: He was pretty amazed of the crowd's reaction.  [00:08:12] David Tolley: He put his hands up the air like, I don't believe this, so it was fun. I didn't know Tommy; I didn't know I was playing for all these people. It was kind of like a dream. I went up there, I was smiling and, back in Ohio, for the church for years, and then I used to play a lot of parties, so I thought, oh, this is fun. I'll just start playing. I didn't know all those 28 million people were watching, so I was winking at the audience. I pretended I had tuxedo on. I was just goofing off. I was a little clowned, but I guess the audience really liked that. [00:08:45] Tommy Thomas: So everybody can Google I guess David Tally the Tonight Show and you can see the YouTube of this. So what did you play? How did you think about it, or did you just go up and just start playing? [00:08:58] David Tolley: I must've been on autopilot because I barely remember the show. I know it happened, but we only had a minute to think. And so I though, the Cats was real popular at the time, the musical, so I said, how about Memories from Cats? He goes, oh, that's great. And I went up and played. [00:09:17] David Tolley: After I got done, you can see on the video, the audience was just clapping and roaring. And I touched Johnny's hand, oh wow, that worked out. And so yeah, it was fun. Johnny was super nice to me. Both shows. I left and they got my name and number and stuff like that. And I went with my brother back to my little studio apartment in North Hollywood and he was like, he kept on hitting me in the arm going, did that really happen? Did that really happen? So, it was a great way to end the week with my younger brother and actually my dad's mom, Grace , who I partially dedicated Amazing Grace, my variation, and she had never seen me play the piano and she was 92 at the time. She lived to be 99. My whole family got to watch it. My grandmother that never saw me play got to see it. So it was neat. +++++++++++++= [00:10:12] Tommy Thomas: So, what did you play on your second appearance? [00:10:15] David Tolley: They called, they had lost my number somehow, so they put a search team out because Johnny came back and Grant Tinker was the CEO of NBC. And he called Johnny the next day. He says, boy, that was great planning that kid on the show. Johnny goes no. I didn't plan it. I just took a chance. He goes, what? So he said, we have to have him back. We have all these letters and phone calls. We gotta let them know. And so Johnny goes, yeah, that'd be great. So they actually called me and I was in North Hollywood. I answered the phone. I still remember, it was lunchtime. They said, hey we have so many letters and phone calls. We really have to have you back on the show so we can explain to the audience this is really what happened. I actually said no. I said, I'm a composer. I'd be too nervous. He said, yeah, but what you just played on there? I'm like, yeah, I didn't know was going on. [00:11:07] David Tolley: So they said, let me call you back after lunch. And I still remember, Tommy, I got my little can of Chicken Noodle soup, Campbells, and I cooked it and put it on my spoon. I could not even keep a noodle on my spoon. I was shaking. So, I had a week to think and I thought, you know what? This is a great opportunity to give glory to God, and do my theme and variations on amazing grace. I wrote it for the church when I left because they had a wide variety of people that some liked pop, some like gospel, some like straight hymnals, some like country, some like jazz. I thought, you know what, it's all music to me as a composer. It's just an attitude of the heart. And so, I did my theme and variations on Amazing Grace as a gift to them. And for my gram Grammy Grace. And so I played that and Johnny, at first they thought, oh, that might be too religious. And actually Johnny said no - let him play what he wants to play. And anyway, so that's what I played. [00:12:08] Tommy Thomas: Wow. And what was the immediate aftermath of that? Did you see any uptick in any opportunities to record or to write? [00:12:17] David Tolley: Yeah, I got to see the great side of Hollywood, and the bad side. Because I had like agents, managers, it was so confusing. From a little town, at the time it was a small town, a suburb of Columbus and I didn't know anything about the music business. I had what, three degrees and started my doctorate, but I didn't have one music business course. Nothing about contracts or intellectual property or anything.  [00:12:40] David Tolley: I was very confused and the White House saw it and they said, we would like you to play at Easter time at the White House. I'm like, okay. And I was actually the MC for the Easter Fest. I actually showed up at the White House and they booked a hotel and brought me in. They said, you know what? We know you're playing and performing, but we'd like you to be the MC. And they handed me a script. I'm like, I wish you guys would've told me. But anyway, so a lot of things like that. I tried out for some movie parts. Madonna and Michael Jackson's manager had a record deal that they were working on, which didn't work because, like I said I saw the good and the bad and a lot of things like that. A lot of projects, some TV and film projects that I did. [00:13:28] Tommy Thomas: As I remember for a while, weren't you Mayor Bradley's pianist of record for a lot of his parties? [00:13:36] David Tolley: Oh wow. Yes. Wow. I haven't heard that name in a long time. Yeah I did. Even though I was out there as a composer, I still was a pianist, and I would still play on people's albums. A lot of rock bands that were signed that didn't have people or players. I was a studio musician that would come in and play and in between projects, if it was a cartoon or scoring an anime film or TV show. I did a lot of stuff for ABC, CNBC and CBS. But there are gaps. There are gaps in between projects, so I always kept up my playing. So, I was playing at the Bel Air Country Club for years, and I played, which when you're out in the public Mayor Bradley saw me and I played so many functions for him. And I played Muhammad Ali's birthday party and I'll never forget it. Muhammad came up and his Parkinson's had set in and he came up to the piano during his birthday, and he wrote me a poem. He was shaking and he was always one of my favorite athletes of all time. And then just a lot of parties and things because they're just people that happen to live out there. And since I'm out in the public I did a bunch of parties for Clint Eastwood and I remember one party in Malibu that I was sitting, it was just a cliff with nothing but glass, looking at the ocean. And I'm like, okay, I'm showing up for this birthday party. So out there and all of a sudden right next to me is Walter Mattau. Right behind me is Gregory Peck, Jack Lemon, Marlon Brando. I'm like, what's going on here? And it was a birthday party for their acting coach, Stella Adler. So it was a party, and I played Hello Dolly for Carol Channing to sing. And my mom would've been in heaven if she would've been there. So yeah, I had a lot of neat experiences like that. [00:15:29] Tommy Thomas:  And then somewhere along the way you got connected with Disney. [00:15:33] David Tolley: And that actually wasn't a result of the Tonight Show. That was, I forget how many years later, five or six years later. Because all that hype and everything slowed down. My phone was off the hook. I was like, oh boy. Yeah, I didn't know what to do. And I probably made a lot of bad decisions. [00:15:54] David Tolley: But I finally settled down to be a composer and play in between. And Disney got ahold of one of my first CDs and they were doing a new park in Paris or Euro Disney. And they took the music from Frontier, Leanne? I forget the land shoot. This is terrible. Anyway, tomorrow land and, this is a brand-new park, and they wanted a brand new lands called Discovery Land. And so it had all these explorers and things like Jules Verne and thing themed rights. I was lucky that out of, I don't know, hundreds or thousands of composers that wanted to do the theme music for this land, I got the job. So I did a two hour soundtrack for piano and orchestra. And it still plays. It opened in 1992 and I still see my, it's not great royalties, but it's, yeah, I'm not going to turn them down. Every quarter I see royalties from my music that's playing 18 hours a day. [00:16:55] Tommy Thomas: So, looking back on the Southern California portion, what's your biggest takeaway? [00:17:03] David Tolley: That's a good question. Just, probably hang on to God, hang the thick and the thin though it wasn't always great times. There were sometimes it was very thin, and I bought a house in Woodland Hills, started having kids and those were great years and then there was some thin years. But God's grace was with me the whole time, and it's exciting. It's not for everybody. In fact, my younger brother moved out there, a lot of friends moved out there. They saw the hype, and within a year they moved out because it's like a concrete jungle. And you have to love the creativity. That's what I liked about it. And it's not for everybody. +++++++++++++= [00:17:45] Tommy Thomas:  What brought you back east and how did you decide it was time to finish that doctorate? [00:17:52] David Tolley: Good question. So basically, I told my mom when I started my doctorate and when I was making that decision to move out to LA, I'm like, I will finish this. I will finish. I wanted to be a brain surgeon, I ended up going into music. So, I said, Mom, I will be a doctor. And I still remember that conversation. So my wife, we had four kids and we were out in Los Angeles. We had a house, a pool, a studio, and she got cancer. And she was from Ohio too and she had a cancer called MOC Sarcoma, a soft tissue cancer. [00:18:26] David Tolley: So, it was an extremely hard decision because the kids had all their friends in middle school and stuff like that. We had a great setup. I was finally out there living, and doing what I love to do, but thought, it's pretty serious stage four cancer. So we moved back to be with her family, my family and the support. She fought it for a good three and a half years and then passed. [00:18:50] Tommy Thomas: How did you, as someone that's never had that kind of experience, how did you get through that? [00:18:56] David Tolley: Oh, it was all God. It really was God. And it's funny that, through most of life, at least for me, it's a pretty constant relationship. But in those very trying times, it's almost like you can hear him breathe. I mean it's very real and that's really what kept me going. Prayer, the church and support. [00:19:18] Tommy Thomas:  You finished your doctorate; you became that doctor that you had promised your mom. [00:19:22] David Tolley: Right. [00:19:23] Tommy Thomas: So now you're on the faculty at Delaware State. Tell us about that. I guess you commute from Columbus to the campus periodically or regularly. [00:19:32] David Tolley: You'd think I was a nut, I probably was, but I moved back to LA, finished, and I thought, Mom, I'm not in an entertainment town anymore. I have to think of a living now. So, I finished my doctorate, and I started Ohio State Music Industry Program from textbook stuff and then real live street knowledge that I gained out there. [00:19:52] David Tolley: The only thing is they started it and everything and built the studios. Boom. And it came time to get the director of the music industry program and I already started the curriculum and everything. They had a new director and I guess they went by the rules. I had one quarter left to go or two and they were doing a search, and they couldn't hire someone unless they had already been an assistant associate, an associate. They wanted a director and I was just finishing up my doctorate so I couldn't even be on the table. My faculty was furious, but that was a hard blow to me. And I finished up and I thought, you know what? I guess I just gotta keep on looking. I've had four or five job offers. One in New Orleans. One was in the Midwest, like in Indiana. I forget the name of the school. But Delaware State, I could fly there to Baltimore in one hour and commute. You thought, why don't you move the family there? If you remember, I moved the family home to bite the cancer. Because they have a great cancer center at Ohio State. And I did that every Monday into Thursday for 10 years. Every single week. I flew there and then now after Covid. I talked to the Dean, and I was full professor now and with tenure, so I was able to say things like this. I was like, I can't travel like this anymore. I'm too old. This airport thing, and Covid, so they made me a deal that I come at the beginning, the end and in the middle. And the rest of the time I'm home. [00:21:31] Tommy Thomas:  I do a lot of work in higher ed, and I ask all my higher ed people this question. What was the greatest lesson that you learned through Covid that you think you'll take forward in your career? [00:21:43] David Tolley: It's being a global world in and with the way broadband is and connections. It took a while to get used to online teaching, and some of my students really like it because they can stay in their apartment or dorm and listen and but sometimes they really miss the one-on-one contact, at least showing them something in the studio or at the piano. But it seems like the tools are getting better and I do all my pro tools and other things. I share my screen, they can hear it, they see it, things like that. But just the question about AI and everything, I still think, that human heart, spirit, that's hard to put into computer code. [00:22:31] Tommy Thomas: I know you're not a conductor but you probably own the fringes of conducting.  I'd like to ask you to respond to this quote from Ben Zander, the Boston Philharmonic. He says, the conductor doesn't make a sound. The conductor's power depends upon his or her ability to make other people powerful. [00:22:51] David Tolley: Wow, that's a great quote. Yeah, there are great conductors and then there are beginning conductors and even at the bus in Symphony Hall when I saw Beethoven's ninth, it's amazing. There are great leaders. They're going through the same gestures of downbeats and expressiveness of dynamics and things like that, but they have such a charismatic power that kind of pulls energy out of the orchestra that they go to new heights that other people can't do. +++++++++++++++ [00:23:29] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. So I'd like to close out with a lightning round of questions. These are generally short answers, but sometimes not. Yeah. [00:23:38] David Tolley: Okay, I'll keep it short. [00:23:39] Tommy Thomas: What's been the greatest invention in your lifetime? [00:23:45] David Tolley: Probably the internet. [00:23:47] Tommy Thomas: What's the best compliment anybody's ever paid you? [00:23:55] David Tolley: I still get comments from that Tonight Show. In fact, I got three this morning. It's crazy. It was so long ago. But I remember a lady, her email, it is almost like you could see her cry. She was, I guess losing someone in the hospital and she would play that over and over for their family member and she said, I felt like you're playing that from heaven for us. [00:24:17] Tommy Thomas:   So if you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would that be? [00:24:28] David Tolley: Find what you're really passionate about. Spend some quiet time in prayer, away from the noise and screens. Once you have that down, educate yourself as much as you can, take chances, because God's going to be there with you. [00:24:45] Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them one question, who would it be and what would the question be? [00:24:56] David Tolley: My favorite composer of all time is Beethoven. So I would've loved to have met him and since he wrote the whole ninth Symphony in his head, and he was an outcast. People thought he was crazy, but he couldn't hear and he'd walk through town and he had a terrible childhood, but he kept on writing music and I'd love to know what kept him going. [00:25:17] Tommy Thomas:  What's the most worthwhile lesson you've learned so far in your career? [00:25:35] David Tolley: Boy, you just stumped me. I wrote a musical on Solomon, and it's never been mounted. And but one of the main themes of that is chasing the wind and you can have all this stuff, all these riches, all this stuff, but if you don't have God, it's nothing.  It's empty. ++++++++++++++++++++++= [00:25:51] Tommy Thomas: I hope you enjoyed this podcast. After we turned the recording button off David and I were talking and he told me that he is expecting one of his musicals to appear off Broadway sometime in the spring of 2024. If you want to bring some laughter to your day, watch the two YouTube clips of David's first and second appearances on the Johnny Carson Show. The first appearance will have you in stitches. Only Johnny Carson could do the setup like he did for David. I've included links to both appearances in the episode notes. January brings us to a new year for the podcast. And I'm pleased with the guests that we've lined up so far. Next week, our guest will be a man who's been the president of three different universities. One of these being a startup. He has a lot to share about leading institutions of higher education through the various stages of their life cycles.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO David Tolley's first appearance on the Johnny Carson (the Tonight) Show David Tolley's second appearance on the Johnny Carson (the Tonight) Show David Tolley's interview with Scott - the Piano Guy David Tolley's Interview - the 200 Year Anniversary of Liberty Presbyterian Church   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts    

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to take your first breath of freedom after being incarcerated? Come, journey with us, as we explore the captivating narrative of James, a man newly freed from seven years behind bars. In this stirring episode, we explore the exhilarating and daunting experiences of his first day out, from navigating modern technology to tackling the list of tasks set by his Aunt Sue and Mentor, Tommy Thomas.Experiencing the world through James's eyes, we unlock the unfathomable joys in the smallest of things, like hot showers and fresh coffee, that are privileges to him after all these years. We delve into his surprising welcome at Tommy's luxurious house and the heartwarming support from his local church, which becomes his beacon of hope. Woven in are the insightful experiences of his parole journey, the daily struggles of staying out of jail, and his paradoxical relationship with his parole officer.But our journey doesn't end there. James takes us with him to an unexpected avenue - the world of fine dining in Birmingham. As he learns to navigate this new world, he discovers more than just a means to pay his restitution fines. We also touch upon his struggle to get a gun permit and the surprising kindness he encounters in his journey. Join us for this heartrending episode, and stay tuned as we continue to unravel James's life lessons since his release. Support the showMore from James & Haley: Chef James K Jones Website Cooking with Chef James K Jones (YouTube Channel) Support our Sponsors Hurst Towing and Recovery -Lynn & Debbie Hurst205-631-8697 (205-631-TOWS)https://hursttowing.com/Home & Commercial ServicesCall or text 205-798-0635email office@hollandhcs.comInstagram Home & Commercial Services Crossfit Mephobia - Hayden SetserCrossFitmephobiainfo@gmail.com256-303-1873https://www.instagram.com/crossfitmephobia/Dana Belcher - RE/MAX Advantage NorthWebsite: theiconagents.comemail: danabelcheragent@gmail.comCall or text 205-910-3358

What happens when the bars of prison give way to the promise of freedom? We take you on a raw and real journey that captures my life-altering experiences in prison, my path to parole, and the thrilling transition back to society. It was a world fraught with fear, uncertainty but also hope, driven by the influence of my mentors, Steve Longenecker, Tommy Thomas, & Denis Devane... and a supportive community.This episode isn't just about prison survival; it's a story of faith, perseverance and personal transformation. With a thousand hours of teachings from the influential Joyce Meyer under my belt, I worked tirelessly towards my parole date. The overwhelming emotion as I left the prison was indescribable, but it was just the beginning. We discuss the dreams and visions penned down in a notebook, detailed plans for life after release and the profound quote that shaped the next two decades of my life.The road to freedom is a tumultuous one. Join us as we navigate the fears and anticipation of freedom, adjusting to life outside prison, and striving to make the most of newfound liberty. Listen in for a revealing account of my best friend Chris, whose chaotic life served as a stark contrast to my own, the jubilant celebration in the honor dorm upon my parole announcement, and the gritty reality of life in and after prison. This episode is a testament to the relentless pursuit of redemption. Support the showMore from James & Haley: Chef James K Jones Website Cooking with Chef James K Jones (YouTube Channel) Support our Sponsors Hurst Towing and Recovery -Lynn & Debbie Hurst205-631-8697 (205-631-TOWS)https://hursttowing.com/Home & Commercial ServicesCall or text 205-798-0635email office@hollandhcs.comInstagram Home & Commercial Services Crossfit Mephobia - Hayden SetserCrossFitmephobiainfo@gmail.com256-303-1873https://www.instagram.com/crossfitmephobia/Dana Belcher - RE/MAX Advantage NorthWebsite: theiconagents.comemail: danabelcheragent@gmail.comCall or text 205-910-3358

[00:00:00] Rich Stearns: Tommy, one of my favorite quotes, and I don't even know who said this originally, but it goes like this, never trust a leader without a limp. And what that is basically saying is that a leader who has only known success is not completely formed as a leader. It's often been said, we learn much more from failure than we do from success. It's also been said that it's harder to pass the test of prosperity than it is to pass the test of failure. ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:28] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us for the 100th episode of Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas. And thank you to all the guests and listeners who've made this possible. My guest today is Rich Stearns, the President Emeritus of World Vision. I wanted Rich as my guest today to celebrate this milestone for the podcast because he inadvertently has played such a pivotal role in my career as a search consultant. My former colleague, Rob Stevenson, and I conducted the search that brought Rich to World Vision as their President.   I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that for the next 10 years or so after Rich started at World Vision either Rob or I would receive at least one call a month and usually more from a nonprofit organization with the question. Were you the guys who brought Rich Stearns to World Vision? We would respond, yes. Their next comment would be something like, we need a new CEO. Can you bring us somebody like Rich? So, in many ways, the good work that Rich did for world vision was a launching pad for what is now JobfitMatters Executive search. I have a lot to be thankful for. Let's pick up on the conversation I had with Rich. So let me give the listeners a little bit of context for how I know Rich. It was the summer of 1997. It was a hot July afternoon and I get a phone call from a friend in Los Angeles saying, did you know Bob Seiple is retiring and World Vision is putting out an RFP for the search? And I said, no, I didn't know that. And he says you need to bid on that search. So, I called my colleague up in Minnesota, Rob Stevenson. And oddly enough, he had received a call that morning from a friend of his in Minneapolis that said, did you know Bob Seiple's retiring? And you need to bid on that search. Rob and I put our material together and we submitted a proposal and lo and behold, we got accepted. And as Rob tells the story, we rejoiced for about 10 minutes and then we asked ourselves, what have we gotten ourselves into here? So, Rich, I don't know if you've heard that story, but that's how we got into it. Maybe tell us a little bit about your initial thoughts when Rob first called you. [00:02:45] Rich Stearns: It was actually a funny story, before that, Tommy, that just shortly after that search was begun and you guys were selected, I got a call from a friend of mine who worked at World Vision and was actually my donor rep. I was the CEO of Lenox China at the time, and he was my major donor representative and also a good friend.  We went back quite a few years and he said to me, Rich I've been praying this last week because Bob Seiple announced his retirement. And I've just been praying for World Vision because I really want the organization to find the right successor to Bob and this, that, and the other thing. And he said, but something really strange happened this morning in my quiet time. As I was praying, he said I don't know how to say it, but to tell you that the Holy Spirit told me that you're going to be the next President of World Vision. Your friend Rich is going to be the next President of World Vision. And I laughed out loud. I said, that's ridiculous. I said, I'm selling fine China to the wealthy, Bill. I don't know anybody on the World Vision Board of Directors. And besides, I'm not available, interested, or qualified to do the job. But other than that, I'm a perfect candidate. That was almost a year before. I actually eventually took the job and it's quite an amazing story overall and the way God used you and Rob as well. [00:04:12] Tommy Thomas: That was the first time we'd ever put an ad in the Wall Street Journal and a trustee on the World Vision Board said we need to advertise in The Journal. And we did. And as I remember, maybe your HR guy, he clipped that and showed it to you.  [00:04:26] Rich Stearns: I had a VP that worked for me at Lenox, and he sent me a handwritten note and it basically said, Dear Rich, I was reading the Wall Street Journal today and I saw this ad and it was a little, one column ad president for World Vision. And he said, I read this ad and it sounded like you and I just wondered if you had seen it. And then he said, P.S. This was really a dumb thing to do, to send a want ad to the CEO of my company. I hope you don't leave. You're a great CEO and please ignore the fact that I was looking at the want ads. And so anyway, I saw that ad and it sent a shiver up my spine because, months earlier, my friend, Bill had made this prophecy that I was somehow going to become the President of World Vision. [00:05:11] Tommy Thomas:  When Rob called you, do you remember your thoughts or feelings? [00:05:15] Rich Stearns: Yeah, I spent a good part of the call telling Rob that I was not qualified for the job.  It was a big Christian organization that focused on global poverty. I knew nothing about global poverty. I had never been to Africa. I had never done any fundraising. I had no theological training to work at a Christian organization, no MDiv degree, or anything like that. And for heaven's sake, I was selling fine China to the wealthy. So, I just said, I just seem like a terrible candidate for this job. And by the way, Rob, I'm not really available either. [00:05:54] Tommy Thomas: And Rob prevailed, he stayed with you and ultimately you did accept it. How have your feelings changed over 22-23 years now? [00:06:04] Rich Stearns: As I got further into this process with Rob, very reluctantly, I was the runaway bride, if you remember that movie but, this was a job I hadn't sought. I didn't want. I was actually somewhat terrified. I hope they don't pick me because I would be a complete washout in that job. I would fail. I don't have the right experience for it. In retrospect, those next 20 years at World Vision were the best years of my life. And I learned a huge lesson about trusting God for the outcome. When God calls you, if you listen to His call and you heeded His call, he'll catch you. He'll travel with you. One of my favorite quotes is from William Sloan Coffin, who was once the President of Yale many years ago, and he said, I love the recklessness of faith. I love the recklessness of faith. First, you leap. And then you grow wings. First, you leap. And then you grow wings. And that's a little bit of what it's like to answer a call from God. First, you leap. God wants your obedience. And only then do you grow the wings to fly. And you can look at people in the Bible like Moses or David or Peter. They had to leap in faith, take a leap of faith, and then God provided what they needed for the task at hand. [00:07:21] Tommy Thomas: I want to change over to your time at World Vision, but before we go there take us back to your childhood and tell me what was it like growing up in the Stearns household? My dad was an alcoholic and on his third marriage. And when I was about ten that marriage failed. [00:07:29] Rich Stearns:  Tommy, I had a pretty rough family background. Neither of my parents went to high school. My mother did a couple of years of high school. My father dropped out of the eighth grade. My dad was an alcoholic and on his third marriage. And when I was about ten that marriage failed.  My parents divorced and the bank foreclosed on our house and my mother, my sister and I were kicked out and had to find an apartment to rent. It was an inauspicious beginning, and as a little boy, my world fell apart when I was about ten years old. [00:08:04] Tommy Thomas: I suppose there would be a happy memory from that. What would be your best memories of childhood? [00:08:10] Rich Stearns: First of all, that I survived it which is for God's grace. I had an understanding at a pretty early age, 12 or 13. I had an older sister that helped me a little bit, but she basically said, look, our escape route from this lifestyle is education. And if you can get good grades and you can get into a good college, your life doesn't have to turn out like our dads, you could really make something of yourself and it's all about education. And that was my focus starting in maybe junior high and through high school. And, I have to say, my childhood, other than the family issues, I had a pretty normal, happy childhood. We lived in a little suburban community, went to a good school, I had good teachers who believed in me in many cases. I had a good group of friends who came from families whose parents were professionals and more stable families. And I've spent a lot of time at other kids' houses, with their families. And so anyway, I think the community somewhat compensated for the problems that I had at home. [00:09:20] Tommy Thomas:  When you came out of high school, how did you make your college decision? [00:09:22] Rich Stearns:  That's also a funny story. So, my best friend first of all, when I was in junior high school and I wrote letters to all eight Ivy League colleges asking for their catalogs, which was pretty presumptuous. But my sister told me the best colleges of all are Ivy League schools. And there were eight of them. One of them, Cornell University, was just 50 miles from my home in Syracuse. And at that stage in my life, the biggest dream I had was maybe I could go to a school 50 miles away, and I could drive there, right? And so, in my senior year of high school, I told my mother, I really think I'd like to apply to Cornell University. And she just burst out laughing. She just said that's ridiculous. How are you going to pay for Cornell University? She said, I don't have any money and your father's a drunk and he's not going to help you. And you can't go to Cornell, and I said I don't know Mom, but I'm going to find a way. I'll get scholarships. I'll do something. That's not the way you want your parent to encourage you when you're making a big decision. I did the application on my own and sent it in. It was the only college I applied to. And not only did I get in, but I got a scholarship and then I got another New York State Regent Scholarship. And this buddy of mine who also went to Cornell, we ended up going together. And he was my roommate freshman year. He's still my best friend. We're still in touch all these years later. So, getting to Cornell was a huge step for my life and that really opened all the doors that came after that in terms of further education and job opportunities. And I guess you could say I successfully escaped my childhood situation and found a way to overcome it. +++++++++++ [00:11:05] Tommy Thomas:  What's something that people are always surprised to know about you? [00:11:11] Rich Stearns: Often people are surprised to know about my family background, right? Because when you graduated from two Ivy League schools, people think you must've been born on third base or born with a silver spoon in your mouth. And that wasn't the case for me. But I think today one of the quirky things about me is I collect comic books from the 1950s and 60s. So you wouldn't think I was a comic book collector but for some reason, they bring back a lot of memories of my childhood because partly growing up they were a form of escapism for me. I could escape from my crazy world by looking at superheroes like Superman and Spider-Man and fantasizing about a different kind of world where the good guys always win, and the bad guys always lose. And so anyway I have quite a collection of comic books. [00:12:01] Tommy Thomas: Successful people are asked all the time, what makes you successful? I'd like to frame the question a little differently, and that would be, what is a factor that has helped you succeed that most people wouldn't know about? [00:12:14] Rich Stearns: This also relates a little bit to my family background, but I understood as a teenager that I didn't have a safety net, right? So I was either going to make it on my own or I was not going to make it, but I didn't have anything to fall back on. I didn't have family wealth. It wasn't like I could move back in necessarily with my parents. So when I got to Cornell, I just thought I've got to succeed or die. It's like graduate or bust because, in fact, I remember one summer I was driving a taxi some of the summers during Cornell and even when I was in business school, the summer before business school. And there was another college kid my age driving a taxi with me to make money. And that Fall he decided, I'm not going back to college. I'm making pretty good money driving a cab, and I'm just going to stay driving a cab. He said, you ought to think about it, Rich. And I said, my dream is that someday I'm going to ride in the backseat of a cab because I saw that as something rich people did. They wrote in the backseat of cabs. I'd never ridden in the backseat of a taxi. So, just understanding that I didn't have a safety net and that, I had to make it or bust motivated me. Now, I think later in my career, Tommy, the success factor for most leaders, I think, is the ability to get along with people to win their trust and respect, to motivate people around you who are part of your team, to treat people the right way and develop a group of people that respect you for your ideas. And those people are very helpful in your career, ultimately, because if you're successful managing those people, you're probably going to do pretty well in your career. [00:13:58] Tommy Thomas: Most of us, if we've been around very long, we've had our mettle tested two or three times some of us come out better than others. Can you share with us a time when you had your mettle tested and how you came out of it? [00:14:09] Rich Stearns: I'm quite proud of this accomplishment. Most leaders can't say this, but I got fired twice in the space of one year, early in my career. It's a long story that I won't tell, but being fired twice was devastating. I was in my mid-thirties. I had three kids, and a mortgage to pay, and I got fired twice in the space of one year. I was in my mid-thirties. I had three kids, and a mortgage to pay. And of course when you're fired from a job, so much of your identity is wrapped up in your title and where you work, what we do. It can just be very devastating when that is kicked out from under you, not to mention the financial insecurity and things that go along with that. God actually used that in my life to really deepen my faith and kind of drive me back to him. If I'm honest with myself, I would say in the first 10 years of my career, I was very successful. I became a CEO by the age of 33 and everything I touched seemed to turn to gold. And I thought, wow, this is sweet. This is going to be a great life. I've made it. And now I've made it to the top of this company. And then all of a sudden, the winds changed. I got fired and found another job. I got fired from that and then found myself totally derailed. But I think what God was trying to do is say, Rich, I'm going to take you out of the game and sit you on the bench. The coach needs to do a little work with you. I think what was happening is I was forgetting that my first job is to be an ambassador for Christ in the workplace, that's really my calling. That's the calling of every Christian. It's from II Corinthians 5 where Paul says, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God is making his appeal through us. And so, wherever you work, whatever you do, if you're a follower of Christ, you're supposed to be His ambassador. And the other job you have is really your cover job, right? It's almost like you're undercover and whatever you do, you might be a professor, you might be a businessperson, or a teacher. And what God taught me over the course of those two years, I was unemployed for about a year looking for a job, and there's no more helpless feeling than being unemployed and hat in hand, basically asking people if they'd consider hiring you. You have no power. All you can do is make phone calls and apply for jobs, answer want ads, those kinds of things. I think what God was really teaching me is to get your priorities straight. And when you've done that, I'll put you back in the game. And there was this memory from my childhood catechism classes. I grew up Catholic and we had to memorize the answer to this question, why did God make me? And the answer was to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world. And it dawned on me, it was like a flash of insight, that's what I've been missing. Wherever I work, my job is to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him in that place and I can do that being unemployed, I can do that as a taxi driver, or I can do that as a CEO. But wherever I am and whatever I'm doing I can try to know God better, to love Him and serve Him in this world and that's what I took with me into my next job, which was at Lenox China. [00:17:20] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back early in your career, who was the first person that saw leadership potential in you and maybe set you on the track? [00:17:30] Rich Stearns: I'll talk about two different people. The first one was a negative influence. My first job was with Gillette out of business school, Gillette in Boston, and I was in sales administration analyzing, 30 cent coupon promotions and things like that and I wanted to get into the brand management marketing side of things. And so I worked with HR to set up some interviews and basically, it all came back that says, you're not cut out for this. You're not cut out for marketing. And I'll never forget the HR VP said, marketing is a young man's game and you're already two years behind, and I said, I'm 25. I said how young do I have to be? I'm 25 years old. I'm too old? And he said we don't think you have what it takes. You can have a great career here in sales, but we don't think you have what it takes for marketing. And of course, I said I got an MBA from the Wharton Business School in Marketing. It's what I really want to do. So, he was just this negative voice. You can't do it. You're going to fail. A few months later, I applied for this job at Parker Brothers Games, which was an entry-level marketing assistant job. And I went in to resign and he told me, you're making a big mistake. You're going to fail at that and you're going to regret this decision. So anyway, off I went to Parker Brothers the next week, and seven years later, I was the CEO of Parker Brothers having risen through the marketing organization to do every job from vice president to executive vice president and into the president's job. So I left this negative guy and my first boss at Parker Brothers was an encourager. He was a guy that said, you can do this. You can do this. He gave me assignments and he said, I trust you, you can do it. And he just believed in me. He sent me to New York to shoot TV commercials by myself. I'm 26 years old. I'm managing a director in an ad agency and the actors on stage, on set, and I'm shooting TV commercials of my own. So he caused me to really believe that I could do it and that made a huge difference in my motivation and my outlook. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:19:27] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you've ever tackled? [00:19:30] Rich Stearns: I can think of a few. When I was at Parker Brothers, think about this. It was a hundred-year-old board game company we all know, Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, Risk, those games. We used to jokingly call it tortured cardboard. We're in the tortured cardboard business. They used to be called parlor games back in the 1890s. When nobody had television or radio or anything like that. And I had this idea to get the company into video games. And so, long story short, I had to sell the senior management. Remember I'm in my twenties. And I had to sell the senior management - don't think of us as a board game company, think of us as a home entertainment company. In the future, games are going to be played on video screens. And these were the early days, the early Atari games. And so I persuaded them to give me a shot at it. And again, long story short, within 18 months, I had hired 180 people. Engineers, software designers, game designers, technicians, marketing people, hired a whole separate sales force. And we doubled the revenues of a hundred-year-old company in about 18 months to two years. So Parker Brothers sales went from $125 million, I'd say in 1980 to $250 million by the end of 1982. It was a huge challenge and pretty amazing. And that's ultimately how I ended up being promoted to CEO. But I would mention World Vision though, as well. So early on at World Vision as the new guy, I saw what the AIDS pandemic was doing to children and families in Africa. And it was largely unknown in the United States. AIDS was a stigmatized disease of the homosexual community.  Christians had wanted nothing to do with AIDS. And when I told my marketing team at World Vision that I thought we needed to really embrace this AIDS crisis, raise a lot of money and help these people. There were 13 million orphan children in Africa because of AIDS and many widows and lots of grandmothers that were raising their grandchildren because their parents had both died. My marketing guy said, our donors won't give to this.  We're a G-rated ministry and AIDS is an R-rated issue. This is about human sexuality and Christians are not interested in this. And my marketing guy said, our donors won't give to this.  We're a G-rated ministry and this is an R-rated issue. This is about human sexuality and Christians are not interested in this. In fact, he did a Barna survey to prove that he was right. And I think that survey showed that only 3% of evangelical Christians said they would definitely be willing to help children that had been orphaned by AIDS. And I said we're going to go there anyway we're going to do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do. And God help us if we remain silent, in the face of this huge crisis in Africa. And so, we did. We went after it and it was a huge challenge because I had to convince my own people to do it. My own team didn't want to go there, and they were the first people I had to convince. And for about the next five years, every speech I gave, every person I talked to, it was about HIV and AIDS in Africa, what it was doing to children and families, and how World Vision was going to help. And I think we raised more than half a billion dollars over those years to respond to the AIDS pandemic. [00:22:46] Tommy Thomas: It's been said that most of us learn the most from our failures. And so, my question is, if that's the truth, why are we all so afraid to fail?  [00:22:54] Rich Stearns: Tommy, one of my favorite quotes, and I don't even know who said this originally, but it goes like this, never trust a leader without a limp. And what that is basically saying is that a leader who has only known success is not completely formed as a leader. It's often been said, we learn much more from failure than we do from success. It's also been said that it's harder to pass the test of prosperity than it is to pass the test of failure, and that prosperity can ruin people in many ways. And we all know how that can happen. You see it with Hollywood movie stars and other people that have risen to high positions but have a great fall ahead of them because of their arrogance and their pride. But failure hurts, failure forces us to face our own shortcomings and limitations. But when we face our shortcomings and imitate limitations, we become more whole as people and more whole as leaders. We have more empathy for people that have failed, maybe people in the future who will work for us, who have failed at something or made a bad decision. It makes us humbler as leaders and much more sympathetic to other people that are struggling at a particular point in their life. So, when I came back from being fired twice, I was a much more empathetic leader than I had been before.  I was much more aware of the people around me and the struggles they might be having. And much more aware of my role as a leader in trying to help them succeed, and help them overcome some of their shortcomings. And so yeah, I think failure is, it's trite to say, but it's really character building and an important step in a leader's development I believe. [00:24:43] Tommy Thomas: Sticking with that thought, we look across the landscape and we see a lot of leaders who have fallen and went down a wrong track. What do you think is the most dangerous behavior that you've seen derail leaders' careers? [00:24:56] Rich Stearns:  I'd mention a couple of things. I think one is pride and arrogance, right? You get too big for your britches. You're bigger than life. We see this in some of the mega-church pastors that have failed, right? They're surrounded by fans who adulate them. Maybe they're surrounded by staff who are always praising them. Every word that comes out of their mouth is being praised and it can go to their head if you don't have an accountability group or if you don't have your feet rooted on the ground and you can start to get into riskier behavior and you start to think you're invincible and nobody can touch you. So I think that kind of arrogance can be part of it. This is related, but it doesn't always come with fame. I think leaders who become, I guess I'd say a lack of integrity, It's if you start as a leader. I've seen leaders who go down this path of losing their integrity, starting to do shady things, telling lies in the workplace, and playing office politics in a negative way.  Saying bad things about their coworkers. Bending the truth or fudging the numbers or, telling the boss what he or she wants to hear instead of the truth. I've seen leaders who go down this path of losing their integrity, starting to do shady things, telling lies in the workplace, and playing office politics in a negative way. Saying bad things about their coworkers and man, integrity is like an anchor. Partly because I was a Christian, but my non-negotiable as I was coming up through the ranks is I was always going to tell the truth to my boss, to the people I worked for, to the people that worked for me, that what you saw was what you got. I was never going to deceive anybody. I was never going to hide anything. I was just going to be very transparent about the way things really were, whether it was the sales numbers or the market share or whatever it was. And when you commit to that, when you commit to that integrity, both relationally and in terms of the way you speak and the things you say, it's like an anchor that keeps you rooted in the right place. It keeps you rooted. Yeah, that's often said if you don't tell any lies, you don't have to remember what lies you told. If you always tell the truth, you never have to get your story straight because you're not deceiving anybody and people trust you. I worked for family-run companies, Parker Brothers, when I started was still run by Mr. Parker. And then I went to work for Lennox and that was owned by a family, the Brown family in Kentucky. And when you work for a family-owned company, it's their money, right? It's their money. It's their company. And they put the highest value on integrity in their leaders because you're not just messing with some shareholder's money, you're messing with my family's money. My family's legacy. And so, they put a very high value on integrity. And I learned a lot from the culture of those companies. When you work for a family-owned company, it's their money. It's their company. And they put the highest value on integrity in their leaders because you're not just messing with some shareholder's money, you're messing with my family's money. [00:27:44] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your corporate career did your Christian life begin to grab hold and inform you? [00:27:52] Rich Stearns: I would say right from the beginning. I had a sense right from the beginning that I was a Christian. I used to put a Bible on my desk. I wouldn't be an undercover Christian, so the people would know. I always think it's helpful for people in your workplace to know that you're a Christian because that way you're not as tempted to get involved with the dirty jokes and the workplace behavior that might be inappropriate the way you talk about people or to people. And if you have a Bible on your desk and people know you're a Christian, it keeps you honest, right? These people know I'm a Christian. They're watching me. And I need to conduct myself in such a way that I don't bring shame to the Lord, right? So I always had a sense that I wanted to be a person of integrity in the workplace and that somehow would reflect positively on my faith and the Lord that I served. And might lead to conversations about faith where, somebody might say, hey, what's different about you or, tell me more about your church and those kinds of things that happened over the years. So those, I think from very early on, I did say a few minutes ago though, that by the time I got to be CEO at 33, my work was so all-consuming, it was just an all-consuming thing that I was beginning to compartmentalize my faith. It was still there, but it wasn't the first thing I thought about when I got up in the morning. It was like, I got to get to work. I got to do this. I got to do that. I've got to accomplish these things. And that's when, as I say, the Lord took me out of the game, put me on the bench, and said, hey, we need to get our priorities straight here. Are you willing to put me first in your life? In fact, my leadership book, Tommy, that I wrote a couple of years ago the first real chapter is about surrendering as Christians.   As leaders, our first job is to completely surrender our careers and our lives to the Lord. And once we've surrendered our career to the Lord, then it's his to do with as he pleases. And we're there to just be good ambassadors to serve him, whether our career goes up or down or sideways, we can still be a good ambassador for the Lord. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:30:06] Tommy Thomas: I hope you've enjoyed this conversation with Rich as much as I have. I'm always amazed to learn about the early years of someone's life and how things turn out in the end.  Next week we will continue to explore Rich's leadership journey. He's been very candid and transparent in the conversation thus far.  That will continue next week.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas World Vision Books by Rich Stearns: Lead Like It Matters to God: Values-Driven Leadership in a Success-Drive World by Richard Stearns The Hole in Our Gospel 10th Anniversary Edition: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World by Richard Stearns Books by Rich and Reneé Stearns: God's Love For You Bible Storybook by Richard Stearns & Reneé Stearns He Walks Among Us: Encounters with Chris in a Broken World by Richard Stearns & Reneé Stearns   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile

[00:00:00] Barry Corey: It was almost like every 10 years I entered this new stage, but when I turned 20 and was captivated by higher education and scholarship, became an English major, that was a decade where I would say I lived this adventure of scholarship thinking and writing and growing and finishing all my degrees during my twenties. And then when I hit 30, Bob Cooley said, why don't you come and work for me? And that was my decade of apprenticeship when I feel like I was to be the apprentice of a master. And I spent really the better part of my thirties learning at the feet of someone who is really good at what he did and cared enough to allow me to apprentice under him. Scholarship in my twenties, apprenticeship in my thirties, and then it hit my forties. It was leadership. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:50] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Barry Corey, the president of Biola University. My friendship with Barry goes back almost 17 years when I led the search that brought Barry to Biola. That was an interesting search in many ways, but I believe that's the only search I've conducted where a trustee at the place where the candidate worked encouraged me to recruit him to another place. But that's what happened. Barry was leading the Advancement Department at Gordon Conwell Seminary. When I launched the search, I sent the announcement to my good friend Joyce Godwin. Who, unbeknownst to me, was also a trustee at Gordon Conwell. And Joyce called me and told me of the excellent work that Barry was doing at Gordon Conwell and suggested that he'd make an outstanding president at Biola. So, Barry, I guess at some level we have Joyce Godwin to thank for this chapter of your life. [00:01:42] Barry Corey: If there's someone I want to thank, Joyce is a great one to do. [00:01:47] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. Before I jump into this, you and I have discussed this before, and I think it was an interesting part of the search. I've done searches where the board kind of rubber-stamped the search committee's work, and I've done searches where it was like a Senate confirmation hearing. And I think yours go to the end of the Senate confirmation hearing. Maybe it's a little bit of humor. Maybe tell our listeners your recollections of that? [00:02:15] Barry Corey: Thank you for bringing that up. I don't have too much PTSD over that, I will say. When Biola University launched its search for the eighth president it was following the 25-year presidency of my predecessor, who was just an outstanding leader, Clyde Cook. And I think that meant that most of these trustees had never been through a search process before. The only ones that had would have been the ones that had been on there for 25 years or more. And to that, I will add that in then the 100-year history of Biola, 115-16 years now they had never hired from the outside. They always cultivated their presence from within. I was 45 years old, so I was rather young. I was at a seminary, not at a university. I came from a theological tradition that Biola needed to be thinking a little bit more about. I wasn't nationally known. There were just lots of reasons why their due diligence needed to be pretty carefully done. So, I saw it as, let's go through all the hard conversations before the decision so that after the decision, those questions don't come up. So, they left no stone unturned. And I actually think that's a good process for boards to go through, to think through in great detail prior to the conversation about making an offer. [00:03:36] Tommy Thomas: I totally agree.  I thought they saw you in multiple venues. They saw you in the boardroom, they saw you at dinner and breakfast. And I just think it takes a while to get to know somebody. I'm a fan of that. I know it was probably a little bit painful at the moment, but I like that. I applaud boards that take that kind of due diligence.  Before I dig into your professional career, take me back to your childhood and what was it like to grow up in the Corey family? [00:04:02] Barry Corey: I was one of two kids, the younger of two. My sister is a year and a half older than I am. And we grew up in a very love-filled home. My father was a Pentecostal preacher in a hardscrabble town outside of Boston, Massachusetts. And by the time I was six, he went into some kind of supervisory role over the denomination. We had a lot of love in our family. My father was, I don't know the best way to put it, a little bit more of a mystic than a cleric. He just had this way of seeing people. What they needed to be seen. And he would equate it as being prompted by God to love everyone he came in contact with, even if he wasn't loved back. And that's why probably his theme verse for his life was Matthew 10:40, where Jesus says, whoever receives you receives me and whoever sees me receives the one who sent me. So, there are a lot of awkward moments, Tommy, in my life when he would hug the Islamic gas station attendant. I would slink down in the backseat of the Pontiac Bonneville, or he would pray over the counter with the Armenian cobbler. Or one time he had the audacity to hold Ruben's face in his hand. Ruben was this Jewish furniture merchant, and he just told him he loved him. And all those moments were awkward to me. But later on in life, as I reflected back, he wasn't being weird. He was actually being receivable, which Jesus says in Matthew 10:40, we are to be. A little snapshot of my family. [00:05:30] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like for you and your sister? My parents did an unorthodox thing and allowed me to go to an all-boys Catholic preparatory school. [00:05:31] Barry Corey:  High school years were pretty good. We were active in our youth group. My parents did an unorthodox thing and allowed me to go to an all-boys Catholic preparatory school called St. John's in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Had a great education there. The great contributions that Catholics have made to education and virtues and morals and the values that needed to be embedded in education. So that kind of set me on a bit of a trajectory to realize that faith-based education is a good thing. So, by the time I was thinking about going to college, I looked at a number of faith-based colleges and ended up at a midsize liberal arts college connected to our denomination in the middle of the country. [00:06:17] Tommy Thomas: How did you decide on your major or was it pretty determined? [00:06:22] Barry Corey: No, I went to be a Bible major, but I had as many stories as other students would say, I had a professor who saw something in me. I didn't see it myself. And he was an English professor. He said, hey, you seem to be a halfway decent writer. Why don't you take another class in composition and rhetoric and then in literature? And I ended up I think falling in love with literature as a major and I became an English major because of the professor who believed in me was an English professor. Now, if he was a physics professor, that might not have been the same case for me. Being an English major was good preparation for being a critical thinker, good writer, articulate speaker, problem solver, and team builder. But that was the reason why people would ask, what are you going to do with your English major? And I didn't really know. But, God makes crooked roads straight, and I see in retrospect how that major was so preparatory for how I can be a critical thinker, a good writer, an articulate speaker, a problem solver, and a team builder. So much is wrapped up in being a literature or English major that really pays dividends in all aspects of life, and I tell English majors this at Biola University today. +++++++++++++++++ [00:07:29] Tommy Thomas: How does an English major get into fundraising? [00:07:34] Barry Corey: I made a decision when I was 19 years old that this transformational experience I had at a Christian college if God so willed, I would enter that as a career and went on and pursued a master's degree in American Studies at Boston College, got hired by a former professor of mine who became the president of a small Christian college outside of Philadelphia, just where I cut my teeth on. Higher education administration. And part of it was a process of elimination. I didn't have an MBA, wasn't a business major. So, entering higher education through the finance channel was not an option. I didn't really think I had the scholarship aptitude to be a professor. I didn't actually think I was smart enough to be one. And I ruled out doing a Ph.D. in English Literature or American Literature. And so, I eliminated that, a few other things. Maybe by default the advancement side, I really enjoyed because it was articulating the vision of Christian higher education to those who would become investors to make it possible for students to attend. And I defaulted there, both at the school where I was working in Philadelphia, and then ended up being mentored by an extraordinary leader at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, and that was where I spent 16 years of my life. The first half of my first 16 years of my real serious post-doctoral career, I did a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at Boston College. I think that's probably what happened, and I started in fundraising at Gordon Conwell, but actually ended up as the Academic Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Education. So, I got over the academic side, but in a rather unorthodox way. [00:09:32] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back to your first management job when you actually had to manage somebody, what do you remember? [00:09:41] Barry Corey: I think I probably learned through a lot of mistakes I made as a young leader. Kept a lot of notes on what I did right and what I did wrong and realize I probably wanted to treat people the way I wanted to be treated. To see my gifts, be honest with me about where I have shortcomings, and help me be more prepared for what's next. [00:10:03] Tommy Thomas: At what time did you, I guess in your career, did you become, I'm going to say comfortable in your professional skin or your professional voice? When did you realize that maybe I have the makings of a leader? [00:10:19] Barry Corey: I don't know. I think I wanted to be a decision-maker. I didn't know where that would lead me. Bob Cooley was a futurist, and he made a deal that if I started working at Gordon Conwell Seminary, even though I wasn't reporting to him, he would mentor me. And there were those that maybe saw some things in me, like I mentioned earlier, Tommy, that I didn't necessarily see in myself. I had three remarkable mentors, one being my father, who I mentioned earlier, one being Bob Cooley, the longtime president of Gordon Conwell Seminary, who was a futurist, and he made a deal that if I started working at Gordon Conwell Seminary, even though I wasn't reporting to him, he would mentor me. And he did that until the day he died, and Leighton Ford and I eulogized him at his funeral just two years ago in Charlottesville. For 30 years he had been my mentor. And then his successor was a guy named Walt Kaiser. Many know Walt Kaiser as one of the leading Old Testament theologians. Being mentored by good leaders was something that I sought out and something today I feel I have an obligation to give out. He became the president of Gordon Conwell and in a very different way, he mentored me also. So, I think being mentored by good leaders was something that I sought out and something today I feel I have an obligation to give out. [00:11:25] Tommy Thomas: So you say Dr. Cooley was a futurist. I remember hearing him speak at your inaugural inauguration. It was amazing. What does a futurist look like in his life?  [00:11:39] Barry Corey: I think he could see things coming that others couldn't see. And he, I think, helped many of us look beyond the horizons of reality at what might be some new ways in which education is going to be delivered or boards are going to be governing, or faculty are going to be researching and teaching. He could just see things that we couldn't see. And he was a great help and he cared enough that he was willing to spend a lot of time with those under his tutelage, like me, and invest of himself. And if I look back at my own life, Tommy, because I know you're talking a lot about leadership here. It was almost like every 10 years I entered this new stage, but when I turned 20 and was captivated by higher education and scholarship, became an English major, that was a decade where I would say I lived this adventure of scholarship thinking and writing and growing and finishing all my degrees during my twenties. And then when I hit 30, Bob Cooley said, why don't you come and work for me? And that was my decade of apprenticeship when I feel like I was to be the apprentice of a master. And I spent really the better part of my thirties learning at the feet of someone who is really good at what he did and cared enough to allow me to apprentice under him.  When I hit 30, Bob Cooley said, “Why don't you come and work for me?” And that was my decade of apprenticeship when I feel like I was to be the apprentice of a master. Scholarship in my twenties, apprenticeship in my thirties, and then it hit my forties. It was leadership. I became the academic dean at a seminary. And then a few years later became the president of Biola University when I was 45 and, I think the scholarship and the apprenticeship prepared me for the leadership that I was experiencing in my forties, starting new things. And I just felt God had paved the way through people who believed in me and took chances on me, even when I had stumbled along the way. And then when I hit my fifties, I thought, it's time for me to start paying it forward. Maybe it's the decade of mentorship from scholarship to apprenticeship, to leadership, to mentorship. Who am I investing in the rising generation so I can pay it forward for those who invested in me? They had nothing to gain by investing in me, and I had everything to gain. So now I'm in my 60s, and it's a new ship.  ++++++++++++++++++ [00:14:01] Tommy Thomas: I know your time at Biola and Gordon Conwell, for the most part, people would say, man, Barry's been riding a crest, but I'm sure there have been times that tested your mettle.  Can you take us into one of those, and how did you come out of it? [00:14:16] Barry Corey: I'm writing a book now on the burdens of leadership which are burdens that top leaders of organizations uniquely bear. And that organization could be a Fortune 500 company, it could be a military unit, it could be the senior partner of a law firm, it could be a pastor of a church, or president of a university, or an owner of a family business. But it's where you have on the organizational structure, that one box at the top that person occupies. And when I stepped into this role as a leader of an organization, Biola has about a thousand employees, 500 students, and a 200-plus million-dollar budget. It was far bigger than anything I had ever experienced before. And I just realized that though I had worked alongside leaders, and I'd heard them talk about burdens. I finally understood them, not just intellectually, but existentially. And so that's the long lead into your question, Tommy. And there have been some real burdens that I've had to bear in this role. One of them is just this burden of loneliness. You're never alone, but you're the only one in your organization that has no peer. And so, friendships are different. The ways in which you relate to people are different and wrestle through that sometimes through trial and error. I've had situations where I was the recipient of legal lawsuits and litigation and just those kinds of burdens that come with leadership. There's the burden of surprises that you don't see things coming and when COVID came it was not anticipated. And of the 3,141 counties in America, only one county, Los Angeles County, where we are, completely shuttered every college and university in the county for 18 months, and we just couldn't get around that. And that was a tough season for us, but leaders have to be able to say we're going to get through this. We're going to overcome it. I've had sleepless nights and stressful times, but you have to live in this balance of reality and hope and communicate that to your own constituents that there is hope without being Pollyanna-ish. But this is also the reality of where we are. And that's another burden we bear is communicating hope with reality to our communities. That we're going to get through this. We're going to be strong on the other side. But sometimes it's hard to even believe it yourself. [00:16:51] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned the loneliness factor and I'm thinking of the board-chair-president relationship. Does that relationship alleviate that or do you still have an isolation piece there? [00:17:04] Barry Corey: No, I think it does, Tommy. Thanks for asking that. There have been four board chairs since I've been at Biola University. And, on a related note, I've often joked to say I'm in my fourth presidency of the same institution because the institution changes during the times that you're there. Now that I've entered my 17th year at Biola there are challenges that I'm facing now that I didn't face then, but the board chair-president relationship is vital and every board chair is going to have a different definition of what that looks like. And I thank God we've had four great chairs that were the right chairs for the right season that we are in. This morning I just finished an over an hour-long conversation, one-on-one with our board chair. And every two weeks, we cover the ground, but some of it's small talk, some it's how you're doing, and some of it's preparing for board meetings and others are like, what are the stressful issues that you're dealing with right now and how can we help? So, I think those Presidents or CEOs that I know have less communication with their board chairs. I just think they're in a tougher place. And I would just say I'm just so thankful for the board chair that Biola has and our ability to just be in regular contact with each other. He also chairs the committee on the president. At Biola University, which is the care and feeding of the president. And to a certain degree, you have to be able to talk honestly about some of the challenges that you're facing, but I will say, Tommy, that the board chair is not like your spiritual accountability partner. There's got to be those, including your own spouse in your life where you just let it all hang out. These are the things that I'm struggling with and dealing with. And these are my own depravity and everything else. So that's really not what the board chair needs to be. You need to be honest enough about the stresses of work and sometimes the stresses of home. But I would be careful not to substitute that with your own spiritual, encouraging, accountable brother or sister. [00:19:10] Tommy Thomas: 16 years, four chairs. So do y'all have a four-year term limit on the chair or has it just turned out that way? [00:19:16] Barry Corey: It's turned out that way.  I think six years, so I inherited the final two years of the previous chair, and we're in the first few years of the current chair.  [00:19:30] Tommy Thomas: All right. Do you and your cabinet create the agenda for the board meeting or how do you do it at Biola? [00:19:39] Barry Corey: Yeah, as it relates to board meetings, we have board meetings three times a year and we've made some changes. I think there are some essential dimensions of a board meeting that we have really been helped by. This might not be true for every nonprofit, but it certainly is true for us. One is that we spend a lot of time on board education. An educated board is an effective board. So, when I started at Biola, there would be four one-day meetings a year. And it was just pretty much, get through the agenda, lots of show and tell if there's a crisis, how are we going to deal with it? And then, we're in Southern California. So, people who wanted to be on the road by four o'clock, so they didn't get in all the traffic. Now we have three, two-day meetings. And I think two-day meetings are so important because it allows some of the discussion happening one day to be reflected on overnight. A governing body is dealing with and responsible for two things. One is financial solvency and the other is missional fidelity. And sometimes with that gestation period or whatever, it's fermenting in your own mind overnight. It allows you to think about things and maybe not rush through issues as much. And so, we spent a lot of time on board education sessions and spent a lot of time on what are the major accomplishments that we need to make sure that the board as a governing body, not an administrative body, but a governing body is dealing with and the board ultimately is, in my mind, responsible for two things. One is financial solvency and the other is missional fidelity. Sometimes you have missional fidelity, but if you're not financially solvent, a lot of good that's going to do sometimes you get financial solvency, but if you're not missionally faithful, then you're a bit like a rudderless ship. So, everything in our board conversations ultimately comes down to that. How are we staying missionally faithful? Sometimes that means dealing with legal aspects that are happening in our culture, in our state in Washington. Legislation that's going through. We're in a pretty bright blue state here in California, and we're a conservative Christian university, and we have to operate differently in many ways than if we were a conservative Christian university in a more sympathetic state. So, the board is so key to helping us deal with these kinds of missional fidelity and fiscal solvency issues. [00:21:55] Tommy Thomas: Does your board get involved in the overall risk management of the university, or do you keep that at the cabinet level? [00:22:01] Barry Corey: On a micro way, we keep it within the administration on risk management. On a macro level, the board is intimately involved in this because there are certainly viable threats to our business model that would be considered under the category of risk management. And that could be, how are we operating within our budget and how are we stewarding our resources and our quasi-endowment for long-term sustainability? How are we anticipating legislation or legal action that might jeopardize our deeply held convictions? Those are all risk management issues. So at the macro level, the board is very involved in those conversations. But as it relates to should we have skateboards on campus? The board's not. [00:22:49] Tommy Thomas: All right. That's good. Okay. So would you say your board is, if the Carver model is on one end of the continuum and whatever might be on the other end of the continuum, where do y'all operate on that as a board? [00:23:06] Barry Corey: We are somewhat of a policy-driven board, but I think policy becomes a little bit of the fallback. Let's not spend so much time developing policy that we're not thinking about our own future. And so, we probably have a balance on our board between, do we have the right policies in place? And are we dreaming and thinking about what kind of board we need to be in the future and what kind of university we need to be in the future that doesn't lock us into a kind of strict board parameters that prohibit us from maybe letting our imaginations go and basically thinking about what a new wineskin looks like at Biola. And I've often thought about this, is maybe a bit of a tangent, Tommy, but I think it's germane. Boards and Presidents can make two historical mistakes: They can be nostalgic – this is the way we have always done it. They can be amnesic – they forget about their founding principles. And that is I think that there are one of two historical mistakes that presidents can make, and boards can make. They can be nostalgic. Basically saying, hey, the way we've always done things is in essence who we are, therefore we're going to keep on doing things the same way. And that can lead really to being irrelevant or maybe mistaking that your methods are synonymous with your mission. So being nostalgic can be a real detriment to future thinking leadership of a board and of a president. But another mistake that presidents and boards can make, it's not just being nostalgic, but it's being amnesic. And by amnesic, they forget about their founding principles. They forget about their values and virtues and why was the institution established in the first place, and going back to the founders' vision and trying to embody and encase that. I spent three days undercover at a well-known college that has been around for 177 years or so. And they do this well. They haven't wavered from their founding mission, and I think that's what's made them so strong today. Because I think colleges and universities need not to blend in, but stand out and they don't need to be indistinguishable. They need to be distinguishable. And part of that is like, why did we start in the first place? And how are boards and presidents talking about that founding vision and founding mission in a way that keeps the board focused on the distinctiveness of Biola University that our world needs more than ever before? +++++++++++++++++ [00:25:36] Tommy Thomas: What's the most creative thing y'all have done at Biola that worked? [00:25:41] Barry Corey: We took a chance a number of years ago of really expanding our cinema and media arts program. We're located close to Hollywood, and we thought, we need four things. We need students to come here and not go elsewhere where they're not going to get a solid Christian-based education. Two, we need a visionary dean that is the leader that will take us there so that it comes out of the industry. Three is we need faculty that have great experience in the industry but are committed to the virtues of Biola University. And four, we needed a studio building to encompass this. And, by God's grace, this is all happening. Our program is growing like crazy. It's now ranked in the top 20 by variety in the country. And we just got like far and away, our largest gift. More than twice what we've ever received in Biola's history. And that was to help us build this building. And we're now going to have a building as part of the Snyder School of Cinema and Media Arts, the Snyder family being the founding family of In-N-Out Burger, who many people know, located here in Southern California honoring the Snyder family and their commitment to not just to media but their commitment to innovation, to opportune entrepreneurship, and certainly the commitment to the gospel. [00:26:57] Tommy Thomas: What's the most dangerous behavior that you've observed that derailed leaders' careers? [00:27:06] Barry Corey: Let me think about that for a second. I certainly feel like where I try to protect myself is to try not to think too highly of myself, but more highly of the office that I hold. And I think that sense of equating your own self-worth with your position and again, the ego and can get wrapped up in that can be very unhealthy to leaders. And it often leads to slacking off on moral and ethical standards because you think you deserve something. So I think that is it. I even try to do small things, Tommy, like I try not to talk about my vice presidents or my faculty or my board chair. They're not mine. They're the university's faculty, the university's vice presidents, the university's board, and the university's board chair. I even try not to say, come to my office to somebody else, they come to the president's office. It's an office that I have been asked to steward during this season and be a good custodian of it. But when I start thinking it's mine, I just think, in my mind at least, unhealthy fruit can be born out of that. So that's one bit of advice I keep on reminding myself, that I am a steward of this office for the season that God has called me to it. And I will say a little story about that, we used to have this big portrait outside of our residence hall of my predecessor, Clyde Cook, 25 years, just a beloved president. And I'd walk down there sometimes. And I'd say, who's that? And they say, I don't know. And I don't say that to disparage my predecessor. I say that to remind myself that, four years after I'm gone, rotate through one class of students. No one's going to know who I am. So, live faithfully the years that you've been entrusted with. Do the best you can. Stay missionally faithful, be innovative, take some risks, but just realize that you and the title you hold are not synonymous. I've got a bookmark on my desk that says, imagine what you would try if you knew you couldn't fail. [00:29:14] Tommy Thomas: If it's true that most of us learn from our failures more than we learn from successes, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:29:24] Barry Corey: I think for the same reason I tell students, it's just because you fail doesn't mean you're a failure. And I've got a bookmark on my desk that says, imagine what you would try if you knew you couldn't fail. So I do think that there's a fine line. If everything you try doesn't work out, then it sounds like the board needs a new president. But I do think if you're so risk-averse, then you're not stewarding well the office that you've been called to hold.  [00:29:51] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back and tell a younger version of yourself something, what would you tell him? [00:29:59] Barry Corey: Oh, you know what? I probably wouldn't tell him anything. I'm afraid if I told him something, then he might be more risk-averse. I'm just glad no older version of me told the younger version of me anything. Are there mistakes that I made that I wished I hadn't and things I would have avoided? Yeah, probably, but I like looking back at the crooked roads that I didn't see coming. And how Jesus and Isaiah say that God makes crooked roads straight and that which looks like it's twisting and turning when I'm going through it in the rearview mirror, it all seems to make sense.  And I guess that's just providence. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Next week will be the 100th episode of NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas. When I began the podcast, my podcast mentor told me that there was bad news and good news about early podcast episodes. The bad news is that the early episodes won't be very good. The good news is that you won't have very many listeners either. I agree that my part of the early podcast was not that good. It took me a while to get comfortable in front of the microphone and hear my voice in a recording. I'm so grateful to Bob Lonac, Jim Lowschieder, Holly Moore, Christine Talbot, David Dockery, and the other early guests who endeared my learning curve. I'm also grateful to Bob Tiede and his blog Leading with Questions.  Bob has taught me so much about asking good interview questions. I do think the quality has improved a little.  Hardly a week goes by that I don't receive an email from someone telling me how much they enjoyed a recent episode. Although our target audience is NextGen Leaders, I'm continually amazed at how many seasoned Board Chairs and CEOs tell me that they're regular listeners. So, thank you, both guests and listeners, for helping us make it to Episode 100. I'm looking forward to next week. Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Biola University Biola University - About President Barry H. Corey  Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Barry Corey's LinkedIn Profile  

Today, we're continuing the conversation that we began last week with Scott Brill, the Chief Financial Officer at Young Life, and Mark Tjernagel, the CFO for Cru. These two seasoned CFOs have given us a behind-the-scenes look at the role of the Chief Financial Officer and a nonprofit organization and how that role is changed over the years.  Mark brings a perspective of having worked for Cru his entire adult life and is the longest-serving CFO that Cru has ever had. Scott began his career in the private sector with Target Corporation and joined Young Life a little over five years ago as their CFO. Let's pick up the conversation where we left off last week. [00:00:43] Tommy Thomas: Take me a little bit into getting maybe a little more toward the accounting and finance piece of this, because I know our listeners, I want them to hear about that piece. Tell me a little bit about the size of your teams, and so you both work for two of the largest Parachurch Ministries, at least in the United States, probably in the world. Both of you are international. Tell me about your teams.  Scott, what does that look like at Young Life?  [00:01:09] Scott Brill: Yeah, so I have the financial services teams plus administrative and legal risk management teams. The financial services team is, 40 to 50 people. And that's really a lot of hourly people focused on income processing, the donation activity, accounts payable, all of our P card activity that's associated with that and is used throughout all of the U.S. and many countries in the world and then, our core accounting teams which are fewer people, but support accounting for all of our consolidated Young Life missions across the world. And we're in 102 countries. Not all of those are consolidated, but we're doing ministry work in 102 different countries. [00:01:57] Mark Tjernagel: So, for me, our structure is a little bit different than Young Life. I have a team of about 75 people based out of Orlando, largely. Doing everything from the typical financial services that you would think of, but also internal audi. Cru is made up of many ministry divisions and many of your listeners have probably heard of the Jesus Film Project or Family Life or the Campus Ministry. Those are all parts of Cru. So, Cru is a lot like an umbrella. With all of these things under it, each of the heads of finance for all of those divisions also reports on my team, so there are about 75 of those people, that I directly give leadership to then indirectly, there's probably another 75 to 100 people that either, you know, in related departments, but they don't report to me or that are out within our divisions. And so they report more indirectly as opposed to directly to me. But it's a pretty good-sized team. We have a lot of great folks working in finance.  [00:03:01] Tommy Thomas: How much of the job takes an accounting mind, and how much of it takes a finance mind? And I think I do know the difference between those two functions.  [00:03:11] Scott Brill: Yeah, you're talking about our jobs? Yeah, the CFO role. I would say it's predominantly the leadership and more of the financial mind is way more prominent than the accounting. There are a lot of CFOs who've never done accounting, and don't have accounting degrees, right? They have an MBA and an engineering undergrad, right? And I think at that, at this level, you have a good controller who has to firmly understand all of the accounting, but many CFOs don't have that. [00:03:44] Mark Tjernagel:  Yeah, I came up through accounting, right? I started in accounting. That was my track to be in the CFO. That's a little heavier in terms of my experience than the finance side, what we would call treasury management, but certainly, once you get to this, the level of CFO, I don't do any journal entries, I'll interact with the partner from the auditing firm that's auditing Cru. Most of my time is not on the technical. It's on the relational side and the leadership side. [00:04:12] Mark Tjernagel: And I have to understand what's happening with accounting, right? It's certainly that. But most of my time is not on the technical. It's on the relational side and the leadership side. But I would say this, I think if I'm trying to really dig deeper into where your question was going there. As a CFO, I do spend more time thinking about things like debt and investments and liquidity, and cash flow. Things like that, which tend to be more the finance side, the treasury function, then I do thinking about strategies for how we're managing the accounting for a film project or something like that. I have people that are really good at that, and they do it, and they report it up to me, but I tend to be involved a little bit more on the liquidity and the treasury side.  [00:05:03] Tommy Thomas: Obviously, Scott, you've had a longer tenure in the private sector. So you might draw from that and, Mark, you obviously are from a nonprofit. But to both of you, how has the CFO role changed over the last 20 years? [00:05:19] Mark Tjernagel: I wasn't the CFO, you know in the 80's, so I don't know what it was like back then, but I'll speak for myself, what I'm seeing now, is it requires communication skills and it requires relation, abilities to build relationships. There's so much technical, so many people in the ministry, in the nonprofit setting, that don't understand like the super technical finance things, right? And frankly, don't even care about them. They just want to know can I do it and I do what God's called me to do. And so the ability to translate, to simplify, to take a really complex matter and just to be able to present it in less than 60 seconds, and then to say to a Board, you know to our Board or to leadership, hey, here are the things that we should be concerned about, and being able to say it really simply. Communication skills are vital for the nonprofit CFO. You have to be able to communicate well. [00:06:13] Mark Tjernagel: So, communication skills are just vital for CFOs. Now, maybe it was like that in the eighties, but I know right now that's the life of a CFO and a nonprofit. You have to be able to communicate well. [00:06:37] Scott Brill: Yeah, I agree. And that evolution has, the role has tended to get more strategic and forward-looking.  You report on what the results were and you share that with everybody. Make sure everybody knows how they did financially.  It's much more about how you are partnering and working with people to change and improve results going forward. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:06:56] Tommy Thomas: In both of your organizations, what does your interface with the board look like?  [00:07:02] Mark Tjernagel: For me, I attend all the board meetings. My team does the presenting. We have two financial-related committees, an audit committee, and what we call an investment committee. And so we're putting the materials together, we're doing the presentations, we're framing out the issues we need decisions on for the board. So as the CFO, I personally interact with the chairman of those committees. Make sure they have what they need ahead of time. So, there's a lot of personal interaction with board members. Whenever the board meets, they always have dinner. And members of management are able to go and interact with them in that way. So there's a personal relationship with the board members, but there's also a kind of a real formal role that we play as well in presenting to the board. [00:07:56] Scott Brill: We have a finance committee that basically does the presentations to the finance committee at each of the board meetings and shares that with the entire board during the executive session. And then we have an investment committee. That's a subset of the finance committee and I chair the investment committee. So, we're actively integrated with the board on keeping them up-to-date and involved in our financial performance.  [00:08:25] Tommy Thomas: You guys have the privilege of probably working with fairly sophisticated boards. I know some of your board members from each of your organizations. If you were teaching at CLA or somewhere, what kind of counsel are you giving the CFOs on how to interact with their boards, and how to keep them informed? [00:08:47] Mark Tjernagel: One of the most important concepts, and look, I serve on a lot of boards and at Cru, I don't serve on the Cru board. I help our board as a member of management, but then I serve on a lot of other boards. One of the most important concepts to remember for people is that the board has a distinct role and it's not management. Like management has a role. The board has a role. And there's a lot of trouble when the board tries to manage and run the organization or when management tries to or fails to run the organization and basically keeps going to the board to tell them what to do all the time. So keeping those roles separate, I think is really important where you, so for example, one of my previous bosses told me, and it's been a lesson I've always remembered is Don't ask the Board what to do. Present to the Board your proposal of what you'd like to do. If they don't like it, they'll tell you. Don't ask the board what to do, present to the board your proposal of what you'd like to do. If they don't like it, they'll tell you, but don't go to the board and say we've got this issue, we're not sure what to do, what do you guys think? Go to the board and say we've got this issue. Management has worked through a process. We would like to propose this course of action. And we're seeking the Board's approval on management taking this action. And so, it emphasizes that separation between the Board, that's governing these trustees that are governing the organization, and management, which is running the organization. [00:10:17] Scott Brill: One of my first interactions with nonprofit boards, that was the conversation. Is this a governing board or a fundraising board? Never is the conversation, is it a managing board?  The Board should be focused on fundraising or governance or some combination of both. And that's the advice I would give them is exactly following up on Mark's. [00:10:39] Scott Brill: Continue to use them for governance purposes and fundraising purposes.  [00:10:44] Tommy Thomas: What role does the board have in risk management, if any, and if not, how does your office help mitigate risk? [00:10:56] Scott Brill: I think that's one of their principal duties, right? As a governing board, they are charged with evaluating the risk relative to the nonprofit, focused, in our case, our ministry. And where are risks appropriate to take relative to the value of the ministry? And where do we need to have risk mitigation strategies in place?  To mitigate the risk to the broader global ministry. [00:11:23] Mark Tjernagel: Yeah. I totally agree. It's fundamental to the board's role to evaluate what we would call enterprise risk at that level to hold management accountable to that evaluation and provide the information that they need to perform their role in assessing that risk. Risk management reports to me, and they do an assessment of risk and so forth, all of that, but a lot of that ends up being, like the insurance component, how we're transferring risk outside or what we're holding inside and what we're using the captive for and what we're just buying in the regular markets, that's more of the kind of the insurance side, the risk role for the board is broader than the insurance side. It's reputational risk and it's, it's all those things as well. ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:12:16] Tommy Thomas: Let's go back to your team for a minute. When some people would think about accounting and finance, somehow creativity and innovation might not be in the same sentence.  How do you lead your staff in creativity and innovation without getting too far afield from ones and zeros? [00:12:36] Mark Tjernagel: There are things you can be creative in and then things you shouldn't be creative in. Controls how your transactions process and function. There are a lot of aspects of the finance function that are a little more set. But when it comes to things like how are you supporting decision-making? How are you analyzing your data? And Scott talked earlier about the finance function has evolved from reporting history more towards helping to set the path for the future. There's a lot of creativity in how you think about your data. I can't give you the exact example, but I'll give you a general example. Right now, we have a board meeting next week and even now we're finalizing kind of what's the story behind a lot of the data we're looking at with this certain aspect of our donation and our staffing models and what that means and how then might that impact what we do in the future? So, there's creativity in that. It's not, we're not artists or anything like that, but I will say this. It's not just accounting and finance majors working in finance, right? We have a lot of people that don't have those degrees, and one of the degrees that I have found has been super helpful are economics degrees, because economists, that's what they do. They're really looking at data and they're trying to interpret things and say what in essence is really happening. And, that mindset and that thinking is really helpful for us in finance as well. Two words that I never like hearing together are creative and accounting.  That's not a place where I like to have people doing too much creativity. [00:14:08] Scott Brill: Two words that I never like hearing together are creative and accounting.  That's not a place where I like to have people doing too much creativity.  For me, it comes down to asking why. When I joined Young Life five years ago the controller would tell you after the first three months of coming in, he started to come in with, okay, I'm going to start with, here's the why. And that really drives the, wait, I'm thinking about this differently. I'm not sharing you. This is what we do. This is how it's been done in the past; this is the result of that. It's the, okay, why are we doing this? Why are we looking at this? That helps you start thinking okay, like now I can think about how I want that work going forward, which sparks the creativity. Oh, I get to change how this is working. How should it work going forward?  [00:15:02] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you or your department has taken on and how did it come out?  [00:15:13] Scott Brill: I'll go first. We're in the middle of it. I don't know how it's going to come out. But we're implementing Workday to replace Lawson as our general ledger software package.  It's going to include human resources and a lot more of the typical enterprise infrastructure. So I did not want to do that. But we didn't have a choice because Lawson is no longer going to be supported. I'm going to foreshadow that it's going to come out great or you're going to die trying one of the two, like those system projects are a bear, like they just are. [00:15:50] Mark Tjernagel: I'll take a little bit different angle and I'll say this. When I took over the leadership of the finance team, I think it's safe to say it was in disarray. We had a very low tenure. We had high turnover rates. There was a lot of pressure that we were understaffed. And so there's a lot of pressure to get stuff done. And it wasn't a very fun place to work. And one of the first things I did was I gathered a small group of leaders and I just said, all right we've got to figure out how to make this a better place to work. Like, how do we change a culture and, it's not going to happen overnight, but what do we do? And we worked a lot together. We didn't get an answer. The answer didn't just come to us in the first meeting. We collaborated and we prayed. We did a lot of activity, put a lot of effort into how we change the culture, and tried out different things that worked, some worked great, some didn't work so great, the theme of what really worked well and undergirded a transformation to which what I would say now is, we do have a great culture now in the finance function. We tried to change towards just really leading with our values. We have the values within Cru of faith, growth, and fruitfulness. My team added a fourth value called community, because we really needed to work on that. And we just, we said, what does that mean? The slogan for the wall, but what does it actually mean? How do we do that? How do we infuse within how we lead the value of faith? What does it mean to have a value of faith, the value of faith if you're in finance and what does growth mean for us as professionals and as missionaries and as, doing our work unto the Lord? And if we really value fruitfulness, how do we do our schedule in our everyday lives? And that was daunting because finance just stunk. Nobody wanted to work there. So I would say that was probably the biggest scary thing that we took on. And thankfully, looking right now, we're always growing and learning and changing, but it's much, much better than it used to be. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:18:05] Tommy Thomas: If I had the privilege of traveling to Orlando and then out to Colorado here in the next couple weeks, and you let me attend one of your staff meetings, and at some point, we ask you to leave the room and you left me alone with your staff, first, what would they say would be the most difficult thing about working for you? [00:18:25] Tommy Thomas: And on the flip side, what do you think they'd say would be the most rewarding aspect of working for you?  [00:18:32] Mark Tjernagel: I'll let Scott go first on that one.  [00:18:37] Scott Brill: You mean what I want them to say? You're asking what they're going to say. What they tell me they would say is... the hardest thing is I don't let things slide. If I ask them why we're in a meeting today and it's why is this, different here? And they're like, Oh. I'm not sure why. And they're like, Oh, hard to believe we actually ran through this ahead of time together and yeah, we're stuck on this, this why. And so that is what I think they would say is I'm always like finding the little discrepancies or, and I'm always looking for, why does this make sense or why care about this? I think that the thing that I hear that they enjoy the most is that I'm forthright, I tell them exactly what I'm thinking or, what I'm seeing. And so they know where they stand on an initiative or what they're doing, with their team and what I think about it, but I let them do it. One of my better coaching moments was with somebody who worked for me. I was like, you need to stop telling your team what to do. Then you can ask questions about why they're doing something a way, but don't tell them to do it differently. Let them figure out why they should be doing it differently. Otherwise, you're not getting commitment to what you're doing. You're just getting compliance with the methodology you are forcing upon them. [00:20:07] Mark Tjernagel: The hard part of working for me is similar, high expectations, right? And it's not necessarily demanding excellence.  There can never be a fault, but just really demanding high expectations and pushing people to do things beyond what they think they can do.  I think the thing they might say that they appreciate the most about me is they know I have their back and I will go to bat for them. I will take the blame.  On their behalf, I'll try to shield them from a lot of the politics and the things that happen up in the other realm of the organization and defend them a lot.  [00:20:51] Tommy Thomas: You guys appear to be on the screen here, probably 10 to 15 years my junior. But I want to ask you a question about supervising generations. So, you may have some boomers on your team, you may have some Gen Xers, you may have some Millennials, and you might even have some Gen Z people. What have you noticed about the difference in the way you, I'll use the word, manage and or lead?  [00:21:20] Mark Tjernagel: I wish I was better at this. I don't know that I'm great. I think there are certainly different ways that we interact. I will interact with different generations, not playing favorites with one or the other. Some of our older staff are more experienced and mature staff. There's one gentleman in particular who I remember when I asked him, I challenged him to a different role because I wanted him to have something that was less intense than the work that he had, but that could allow him to work for a longer period. And so just working with him on that. But I think I'd say this across generations. People are still motivated by a few things. And I think one of them is knowing that the work that they're doing is important. And that they are seen and valued and so whether you're a brand-new staff member or an intern. I had we have some interns work in the summer. We took them out to lunch earlier this week, But then I've got people that are in their 70s still, you know working full-time jobs with us and everybody is the same. They want to know that their work matters and that they matter. And so how I can communicate that sometimes you can communicate differently to different generations, but it's that similar message. [00:22:48] Scott Brill: And the generational groupings are helpful when you're doing mass research and really understanding okay, what's changing with the thousands of kids that are showing up at a Young Life camp and what's happening out there? When you're dealing with teams of 50 you should be dealing with them as individuals within your leadership team. And I have somebody who's 26 years old but has a lot more of the characteristics of a boomer. Don't treat them like, oh, you're Generation Z and I need to give you this and treat you this way. You should be tailoring your leadership to the individuals on your team.  And I think that's really the focus, from a leadership standpoint, I think the generational consistencies help you with the big broad strokes on, do you have to have more digital community environments available? [00:23:45] Scott Brill: Yes. Will that continue to grow? Yes. But don't put that on everybody just because of their age group.  +++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:23:54] Tommy Thomas: What was the most important lesson you think you learned during the pandemic that you'll take forward?  [00:24:02] Scott Brill: We can get work done without having everybody physically in the same office.  [00:24:08] Tommy Thomas: And you think y'all will continue that as you move forward? [00:24:13] Scott Brill: Yes, I think we've learned where that can be done just as efficiently, sometimes more efficiently and where it can't. So, I think, going forward, we'll be able to have that better balance of, hey, these things can happen very easily remotely, and these teams can be much more geographically diverse and still be very productive.  These functions and these activities require a lot more physical presence to be as. [00:24:45] Mark Tjernagel: I would say I totally agree, and I'll add something that's going to sound contradictory. But I think it's true as well, which is the importance of personal face-to-face interaction, right? We can get so much more work done differently now, and we learned how to do that in a hybrid setting. But man, we also found how important it is that our people get together and have time and opportunities to interact with one another. And not everybody wants it, some people crave it and some people don't, but everybody needs a dose of it. And so finding ways you can balance that is going to be really important going forward. [00:25:27] Scott Brill: I totally agree that's the hardest thing going forward is how you keep that connected, the team environment. So you might be just as productive, but if you don't feel like you're part of a team and you're very connected to people as individuals, that will show up in retention. I agree with you, Mark. It's not contradictory at all. It's what you need to do to make it sustainable. [00:25:56] Tommy Thomas: I've always been a big believer in non-profits working together and ministries working together. And I know you guys have this off-site thing that the different levels of leadership within multiple parachurch ministries do. Tell us about that and, what does the CFO conclave look like? [00:26:18] Mark Tjernagel: Sure. Our predecessors have been meeting for years. Sometimes the organizations will have a COO, sometimes a CFO, that attends. So, I did actually, our COO attended for a long time and I just started attending a few years ago. But yeah, there are several parachurch organizations. We get together usually twice a year and we spent about a couple of days together and honestly, a lot of times, we'll talk about some technical issues, how we're dealing with things, but a lot of times it's just great to get together with a peer from another organization and just be able to because the people that can relate to the challenges and the struggles and the things you're going through. Those times have been really rich and rewarding for me. [00:27:09] Scott Brill: Yeah, it was super helpful for me because coming from a for-profit public corporation world and moving into faith-based ministry, I learned a lot in those first sessions from the different ministries. Here are the challenges, oh, wait, that's the same thing I'm hearing from my team. Where are you already gone through this? And it was super valuable for me as I made that transition.  +++++++++++++++++++++= [00:27:37] Tommy Thomas:   Let's try to land this airplane here in the next minute or two. I'll ask you some possibly short answer questions, perhaps not. What's the main thing you wish somebody had told you earlier in your career? [00:27:56] Mark Tjernagel: Being in ministry is not easy. [00:28:05] Scott Brill:  I wish I had learned earlier that you don't always have to be 100% right or 100% accurate. Maybe it's the engineering math in me that I always wanted to get that final accuracy over the edge. And that caused me some issues in relationships because I was too focused on that. [00:28:33] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would that be?   [00:28:40] Scott Brill: That's easy. Don't do that. Be directionally correct and focus more on the relationship. I think I'd go back to me and just encourage me to hang in there. That it's worth it. In the long run, it's worth it.  The struggle, the challenges, it's worth it.  [00:28:58] Tommy Thomas: If you could get a do-over, is there anything in your career you would like another shot at? [00:29:02] Mark Tjernagel: All the times I've messed up and how I've led people. [00:29:10] Scott Brill: Yeah, that's a good one. I'll double down on that.  [00:29:16] Tommy Thomas:   What's one piece of advice that you might have to those listening that are in some sort of CFO track? What kind of counsel are you giving them? And maybe this is a little bit of a longer answer. [00:29:29] Mark Tjernagel:  I would say I'll modify the question a little bit. I'll say if somebody is in college, my recommendation or they're new in their career, I'd say learn everything you can about data and analytics software and tools, like Tableau and Power BI and things like that. Like how to think about information and data and how to visualize it and then also learn as much as you can about automation.   Robotics is really big in accounting and finance now and it's the wave of the future and so understanding automation early in your career will be really helpful as you grow in your career if you're on a CFO track. I'd go back to what I said earlier, which is to take communications classes and network yourself right because the process of networking into things like the Christian Leadership Alliance or other events like Missio Nexus or places like that is helpful because it helps you learn how to communicate about who you are and how to communicate with other groups of people but any classes or courses on communication is super helpful because it's fundamental to a CFO. [00:30:43] Scott Brill: Organizational behavior relationships. That's what's going to matter the most as you progress further up in your career. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I hope you've enjoyed learning from these two seasoned CFOs. Their insights have inspired me to have conversations with CFOs from additional nonprofit organizations. Future programming also includes conversations with the Chief Communication Officer, the Chief Information Officer, and the Chief Legal Counsel of nonprofit organizations. So, stay tuned for these episodes.  We're getting close to the 100th episode of Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas. This is a huge milestone for us, and we have a very special guest for that episode.  I'll give you one clue as to who it might be. This person played a pivotal role in accelerating my career as a nonprofit executive search consultant. Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes on our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast.  [00:24:51] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.    Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.  If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Cru Website Young Life Website   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile

[00:00:00] Scott Brill: The great recession. I had to actually take a leadership role in reduction in our workforce at Target. And I don't get too worked up about dollar decisions, blending decisions, all of those things. Sometimes they go the wrong way.  It doesn't bother me at all. The really test of my mettle is the weight, the impact that this is having on people, not just themselves, but their families, and so that was one of the hardest things, having to sit there as people walked into a room knowing that they were about to learn that they did not have a job anymore. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:36] Tommy Thomas: In our quest to pass something useful along to the next generation of nonprofit leaders over the course of the past 90 episodes, we've had conversations with nonprofit Chief Executive Officers, Chief Development Officers, Chief Communications Officers, but we haven't spoken with any Chief Financial Officers. That's about to change. Our guests today are Scott Brill, the Chief Financial Officer at Young Life, and Mark Tjernagel, the Chief Financial Officer at Cru. So, gentlemen, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership.  [00:01:14] Mark Tjernagel: Thanks, Tommy. It's great to be here.  [00:01:17] Tommy Thomas: Before you came on, Mark, I asked Scott. He said he's been at Young Life for five years. How many years have you been at Cru? [00:01:23] Mark Tjernagel: Thirty-two years now.  [00:01:27] Tommy Thomas: Wow. You must have written the book there on finance. [00:01:31] Mark Tjernagel: Yeah. I'm pretty sure on this stat that I was the youngest CFO Cru ever had. And I'm now the longest-tenured CFO Cru has ever had, so I might be due to do something else now.  I don't know.  [00:01:44] Tommy Thomas: I'll keep that in mind next time I get a strong CFO search. So, before we dive too deep into your professional career, I want to go back maybe to your childhood or your upbringing. I'm always curious about things that happened to people along the way that made them who they are today. [00:02:00] Tommy Thomas: Scott, we'll start with you. What two or three things do you remember about your childhood that you think were formative in your development?  [00:02:08] Scott Brill: Yeah, so I grew up in West Michigan and I think the biggest formative things for my childhood were church, grandparents, campground, and then school. And school became a pivotal moment when I moved from the public school after eighth grade and switched to a Christian school. And that was a big formative event in my childhood. But it was based on strong family and church values. [00:02:37] Tommy Thomas: What about you Mark?  [00:02:41] Mark Tjernagel: I grew up in a faith-based home, but not a practicing, what you might think of today as a practicing evangelical type home. My parents loved each other. Great upbringing. One of the things I remember most about my childhood was our house was the house everybody came to. My friends would come over to my house, even when I wasn't there, just to hang out with my parents. So, my parents were great and everybody loved them. I loved them too. And yeah, it was the weirdest thing one time when my friend said, hey, I'm going to go over to your house for dinner. I said I'm not going to be there. He said that's okay. I'll go hang out with your mom and dad. So it was fun. My parents loved people. People loved them. I learned a lot from them. I think the other big thing I learned from them is they entrusted things to me at a pretty young age. And so, they gave me a lot of responsibility and held me accountable. And I think that served me well when I got older and went off to college and started work. So, I learned a lot from my parents. They were great.  [00:03:43] Tommy Thomas: So, what was high school like for y'all? [00:03:49] Scott Brill: High school was great for me. As I said, I switched schools after eighth grade.  And then I played football and got connected right away with friends from the football team. And it was actually quite a positive experience.  [00:04:05] Mark Tjernagel: I played football as well. Maybe there's a common theme here that you know sports or something like that will lead you to be competitive and be a CFO. I don't know but yeah, high school was all about academics and athletics and it was great. I went to a public school. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas a wonderful place to grow up. A real cultural city. I loved it. High school was awesome. High school is also where I came to faith. My faith really became personal to me and started walking with the Lord right before my senior year of high school.  High school was a real eventful time for me in my life.  [00:04:44] Tommy Thomas:  When you got to college how did you decide your major?  [00:04:50] Scott Brill: I decided to major in engineering because that's what all of what I viewed as my smarter friends were doing and I started out engineering.  And then a year and a half in, I started to get information about what that meant from what I was going to do for a job. And so, I actually switched. And I got my Bachelor of Science in Accounting. The reason I did that was because engineering was a science program and I was at a liberal arts school, Calvin College at the time, now Calvin University. And so all of my science credits and those calculus classes, etc. applied much more favorably to engineering,  bachelor's science, and accounting than they would have to a business degree. [00:05:36] Mark Tjernagel: Yeah. I went to Texas A&M and Scott, at A&M, we used to call the engineering school pre-business because so many people started taking all the math and thought, maybe business would be a better major than engineering. But Tommy, when I was in high school, I don't remember if it was my junior or senior year that we had to take an elective and one of the electives that was out there, I didn't really know what to take, but it was accounting. [00:06:04] Mark Tjernagel: I thought I'll try that out and just see what it is. And I loved it. I thought, man this actually totally makes sense to me. And so since it made so much sense to me and I knew there there would be good career opportunities in accounting. I was one of those few, I think that declared my major as accounting right from the start and stuck with it. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:06:24] Tommy Thomas: You graduated from college, you got a first job, and then somewhere along the way you had a chance to manage people. Scott, reflect back on that. What do you remember about that job?  [00:06:35] Scott Brill: I went to the University of Michigan and did my master's in business administration after my first job. Target Corporation - that's where I got my first job really leading a team.  And I just remember messing it up. I remember more of the things I did wrong than anything I actually did right. [00:06:40] Scott Brill: And so I left there and went to Target Corporation, and that's where I got my first job really leading a team.  And I just remember messing it up. I remember more of the things I did wrong than anything I actually did right. I learned a lot more about reactions to things that I was not doing right than I would have if I just had gotten it right the first time. [00:07:12] Mark Tjernagel: Yeah, I think, I go back a little bit before, before graduation and I've just found it seemed like multiple opportunities where I was put in a position to give leadership to people that I didn't ask for. I don't think I really even earned it. It was thrust upon me, like at A&M, I, as a student, became the director of the Cru ministry, the Student Director of the Cru ministry my last semester I think it was because I was still there. I was the one that was left. I'd gone on a mission trip with a group called Operation Mobilization, a wonderful global ministry. I went on it as a college student, even though I was involved in Cru. I did a trip with OM, but that was okay. And while we were there, they asked me to lead a small group of people to do some ministry outreach in Norway. And I was thinking some of these people don't even speak English. I'm in college. I've never led anything. Why in the world are you making me the leader of this?  They asked me to lead a small group of people to do some ministry outreach in Norway.  And I was thinking some of these people don't even speak English. I'm in college. I've never led anything. Why in the world are you making me the leader of this? And so it was just thrust upon me. And then when I graduated, I came straight to work with Cru. And so all of my leadership experience really from a work standpoint has been at Cru and like Scott said, I look back when I was a younger leader and I think, man, I'm so thankful I got the opportunities, but wow, I didn't know what I was doing, and it was hard. [00:08:32] Mark Tjernagel: I didn't communicate well. I tend to be more of a quiet person. Especially when work gets busy and hard, I just put my head down and get work done. And I had to learn, no, you actually have to check in with people and see how they're doing, and I slowly learned the importance of being able to communicate with people and checking in with them regularly. But it was a rough go at the beginning, that's for sure.  [00:08:54] Tommy Thomas: So let me switch over to the role of a mentor. Did either of you have anybody that came alongside you and either formally or informally mentored you? [00:09:02] Mark Tjernagel:  Yeah, certainly. I did a little talk one time. I won't remember all of the stats from it, but I went through several of the bosses that I had.  And I wrote down a word or a theme or a thing that I had learned from each of them. One of them was the importance of communication and interacting with people and another one, I remember it was about the importance of Information Technology.  He was really big on systems and how all of the systems played into the work that we were doing with finance. I learned so much about kind of crossing functional barriers and not just being a finance guy. Yeah, I had several people that really mentored me. One that really stands out was a board member of Cru, a gentleman by the name of Bruce Buner. I believe he was the very first CFO Cru ever had, but he did that for a short time and then he went out into the business world and was very successful. But he spent a lot of time helping me think about how to put together, it sounds simple, but writing a memo, trying to create an argument, so to speak, not an argument, like a fight, but to make a case, how to think like an executive leader, how to connect in the community, he was a wonderful man and a great mentor.  I learned a lot from him. [00:10:18] Scott Brill: Yeah, similarly, it was a long string of different people who were engaged in my career in development. And it changed as I moved around into different roles and functions. But there are people who are consistently there to help and give me advice. And really help me stay out of my own way on some things, especially the same things Mark's talking about. [00:10:44] That's why I like him so much. Same issues on, hey, you can probably communicate a little more and share what you're thinking more readily. And that's been the biggest thing that they've helped do with a lot over the years in leadership. +++++++++++++++++ [00:10:57] Tommy Thomas: Scott, I remember when I recruited Atul Tanden to World Vision from Citibank, and he was an Indian fella, and he had this clipped British accent, and after about six months of being on the job, he called me one day, and, he says, Tommy, he says, if we'd have had this many meetings at Citibank, we wouldn't have had a bank. [00:11:17] Tommy Thomas: What was your biggest shock as you left the private sector and came to Young Life?  [00:11:25] Scott Brill: I still have a lot of meetings. And it was funny because I felt like it was a lot less, a lot fewer meetings. Like I had a lot more free time than they did in the private sector. Yet my peers all felt like, how are we adding all these meetings? And we're spending so much time in meetings. And so, for me, it was that your relative position makes a big difference. I felt like I was being freed from a fair amount of meetings, while they felt like they were spending too much time in meetings.  [00:11:54] Tommy Thomas: What they didn't know…  [00:11:56] Scott Brill: Exactly. Grass is always greener.  [00:11:58] Tommy Thomas: You pick who goes first on this one, but tell me about a time in your life where you, in the southern vernacular, a situation tested your metal, and how did you come out of it? [00:12:17] Mark Tjernagel: This is a challenging question. I'll go first. The list is numerous. What's going on in my head is, how do you pick one?  I've been the CFO now since 2005. You're tested constantly. [00:12:34] People don't always agree with you and that's fine. You can deal with that. Sometimes you're attacked personally. Those are a little harder to deal with. Sometimes there are leadership issues, where you're going against the grain, you're trying to push for something and it's really hard and it's a time of testing, so to speak. [00:12:54] Mark Tjernagel: I think the example I'd give, Tommy, is one that's really more of a longer-term thing. And that was the CFO in 2005. The guy I took the role over from was Mr. Buner that I mentioned earlier. He had come in on an interim basis while we were in between CFOs before I was officially named that. He was on our board. So, he had me doing a lot of the work and he got me started on a project that didn't end until 2016. It was a project to sell our former headquarters. Many of your listeners might remember Arrowhead Springs which was the former headquarters of Campus Crusade for Christ, our name back then when we were founded, but we now go by Cru, but our former headquarters at Arrowhead Springs. [00:13:39] And I worked on that for 10 years and you, the astute listener, will know that in the middle of that 10-to-11-year timeframe was the great recession. That tested a lot of our metal and how, we're trying to sell this property that's costing us a lot of money just to carry because it wasn't producing any revenue. [00:13:56] It was property sitting there. It was very expensive to hold, and very difficult to sell. There are just challenges with how the property was owned. It was owned by multiple entities of Cru. It had water rights and it had easement rights and it had land rights and it had mineral rights. It just was a really challenging thing to begin with, but then just trying to sell it coming and going into and out of the recession. [00:14:22] We had a deal, basically, when the recession hit it fell through. And what I learned from that was just the importance of what I'll call grit like it's just sticking to it. I had to have confidence. I had to go to the board meeting. After the meeting, I remember one of our board members said once, they didn't mean it in a mean way at all, right? [00:14:43] There was a wonderful board member. They said I'm looking forward to the day when we don't ever have to hear about Arrowhead Springs again. It's because that's how everybody felt like, oh my gosh, why can't you sell this thing? Why can't you sell this thing? Year after year, meeting after meeting. [00:15:00] Mark Tjernagel: And it was just, man, we have to stick to it. And one of the things I learned was you just have to have a vision. You've got to work creatively, but you just got to keep grinding. And it took a lot of grit to get to that point where we could finally sell. Let me tell you this, that thing sold, what a relief was taken, the weight was removed from my shoulders. [00:15:21] Mark Tjernagel: And it wasn't actually even a big public celebration. Nobody really cared. We sold the property, big deal, but in my mind, it was, man, that was 11 years' worth of work. And wow, that was great. And just the relief and kind of the internal celebration was good, but I know probably didn't answer your question well about what I learned, but I think it was just that aspect of sticking to something that's hard.  Even when it's hard and not giving up. [00:15:51] Scott Brill: Yeah, I go back to that same time period. The great recession. I had to actually take a leadership role in reduction in our workforce at Target. And I don't get too worked up about dollar decisions, blending decisions, all of those things. Sometimes they go the wrong way. It doesn't bother me at all. The thing that really tests my mettle is the weight, the impact that this is having on people, not just themselves, but their families, etc. And so that was one of the hardest things, having to sit there as people walked into a room knowing that they were about to learn that they did not have a job anymore. And that was really hard for me to reconcile with my values as a leader. And so I learned a lot from how to do my best to avoid being in those situations and how to be resilient by focusing on what you're doing for those who will be able to stay and keep their jobs, from a longer-term standpoint. [00:16:51] Scott Brill: So that's the hardest thing is the things that have human impact on people. +++++++++++++++++ [00:16:57] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to hiring for a minute. I probably know that you screen for the technical competencies of an accounting and a finance person. But aside from that, if you've had a key to your success in hiring what would it have been? Hire for attitude, train for skill. It's a lot easier to teach people how to do something that is skill-based and required. [00:17:16] Scott Brill: Mine is simple. Hire for attitude, train for skill. It's a lot easier to teach people how to do something that is skill-based and required. Now, in accounting, there are some jobs they need a degree for. They've already learned a lot of that skill.  We're just going to augment that with specific skills, within our systems, technology, and business framework. But I'd rather take somebody who's a little lacking on the skill side who has a great attitude every day. Makes the team much better.  [00:17:47] Mark Tjernagel: Yes. I like that hire for attitude, not for skill. It's difficult asking interview questions and assessing character, right? But character, I think we'd all agree, that's like fundamental to really a person being successful on our teams is that is their ability to blend in with our team. And I work with our HR team to really try to craft creative questions, depending on the role, the questions will change, but that help us gain insight into will this person fit not just the technical skill. You're right, technical skill there is a baseline. You've got to know something right? I couldn't hire somebody to do FNPA that doesn't know anything about accounting or analytics, right? So, there's a baseline, but it's that character. But man, it's really hard to assess. We'll do multiple interviews, right? [00:18:38] Mark Tjernagel: And we'll try to weave those questions in there a lot, just trying to gain that will the person fit, and do we think they're of the right kind of character for our team and our environment?  [00:18:51] Scott Brill: I find a valuable way, like we tended to always have a lunch or a dinner depending on the level of the position in the interview progression. But get them outside of an office environment in that I'm just trying to present what I'm presenting to you in a lunch or a dinner that you get a lot more of the, who they are outside of work.  Mark Tjernagel: That's a great idea.  [00:19:12] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, we like to do that in our search practice. We always encourage committees to include a meal so they can get off point maybe. [00:19:22] Tommy Thomas: I think the strangest thing I've ever seen in that was, and it was from the flip side, I don't remember who the client was, but I remember the candidate was in Seattle. And so, the hiring director flew to Seattle to interview the candidate, and that lady took the client to the World Series. [00:19:37] Tommy Thomas: I guess the Mariners were in the World Series that year. And so, I thought, now that's an interesting way to spend an afternoon with your future boss. Just real quickly on terminating. Scott, you mentioned something back in the recession but in general, say you've had somebody that's gone the course and it just didn't work out. What have you learned over the years is the best way to facilitate that?  [00:20:03] Scott Brill: I think if you do it right, it should never be a surprise. So if you're terminating somebody because they're not delivering to the expectations that you have for the role or that your ministry or whoever you're working for has it, they should already know that. You should have been communicating consistently with them about where they're missing the mark and giving them a chance to address that. [00:20:28] Scott Brill: Some of those things you can help with. Some of those things you just have to make them aware of and they need to figure out how to handle it on their own. And if they can't, then you're going to that next step where you're having that conversation of, as we've been talking about these things and we're not making progress to the level that we need to, for you to continue to support this role. [00:20:52] Mark Tjernagel: That's so good. It's so good. It shouldn't be a surprise. Unfortunately, sometimes it is even though you say it multiple times, but you're right, Scott. That's progression. Tommy, there's a concept we try to put into practice in Cru. We didn't invent it. It's from the Bible. Henry Cloud has taught on this a lot, about grace, truth, and time. There's a passage in Luke - Luke 13:6-8, if any of the listeners want to look it up. I actually have it here. It says a man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, for three years now, I've been coming to look at the fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Just cut it down. Why is it using up the soil? Sir, the man replied, leave it alone for one more year. I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, then cut it down. And so, there's this concept weave through that parable of grace, wait, don't cut it down yet. Give me another chance. But truth. Look, it's going to be cut down if it doesn't bear fruit, right? Just speaking of the tree, not the person. [00:22:00] Mark Tjernagel: It's going to be cut down if it doesn't bear fruit. But, the rescuer, so to speak, the vineyard the person that works there says no, let me fertilize, let me dig around, let me uncover the truths of what's really happening. Let me fertilize it, try to grow, offering that grace, and let's give it some time so that we can make a decision, but we're implementing grace with truth, but also giving some time because change and developing, it doesn't happen immediately. [00:22:30] Mark Tjernagel: And like Scott said earlier, as we get to the end of the proverbial year from this parable, like everybody should know, okay, it's time. We're not seeing the fruit, we're not seeing the things, this probably isn't a good fit, we're going to make a change. But that's grace, truth, and time. That concept is the thing that I've learned a lot in how people have dealt with me. [00:22:50] Mark Tjernagel: And I think it's been very helpful as I've dealt with my teammates. [00:22:56] Scott Brill: One thing I've learned over the years a lot of times you're doing a disservice to the individual as well. Because there are so many different environments, roles, functions, teams, and expectations. [00:23:10] They just haven't been willing to pull the trigger to make a change a lot of times as well. And they're not being their best selves. And so, I have multiple times where people have come back and said, thank you, I am now in a much better place.  Vocation formation. I don't know if you've done any work on that, but I found a role where now I am excited. Like I belong here. I'm delivering great results. And I was not doing that in the role that I was in before. [00:23:39] Mark Tjernagel: And Tommy, sometimes it's not always, like Scott said, it's not always we're going to terminate you and you're no longer employed by Cru. Sometimes it's, you have great character. You're a wonderful part of our team. We love having you here. I know there's a contribution that you can make. It's just not this current role. Let's work to try to find a better role and a better fit for you if we can within the organization. [00:24:10] Tommy Thomas: Next week, we will continue this conversation with Scott and Mark. They will take us deeper into their individual roles as the CFOs of Young Life and Cru, as well as the overall changing role of the nonprofit CFO.  Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes on our website www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.  If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Cru Website Young Life Website   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile

[00:00:00] Alvin Sanders: The hardest decision I had to make concerning my own personal level of leadership was the decision that I made in 2007 to leave the pastorate and to work for the denomination. And the thing that got me was the President who unfortunately has passed away, Bill Hamill, he asked me the question, he said, Alvin, do you want to influence one church or do you want to influence 1500 churches? And honestly, I had to ask to myself, and I said I want to influence 1500 churches. ​+++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:34] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Dr. Alvin Sanders. On his LinkedIn Profile it says, President and CEO of World Impact, Adjunct Seminary Professor, Advocate for Redemptive Poverty Work, Husband, Father, Author, Mentor, and Loves Sports. I imagine we could do a podcast episode on all those titles, particularly the one about sports. But today I want to focus on Alvin's role as the President and CEO of World Impact, and in particular their work as an advocate for redemptive poverty. Alvin, give us your elevator speech on World Impact.  [00:01:17] Alvin Sanders: World Impact started about 52 years ago and we're trying to solve the problem that 95% of the world's pastors have no formal ministry training. We believe that we provide effective ministry training that's affordable and accessible as part of the solution to that problem. And our theory of change is that trained urban pastors lead to healthier churches, which leads to them impacting their community toward flourishing.  [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: Good. You got that one down. [00:01:46] Alvin Sanders: That's good. I don't know if that was 30 seconds or not. I got it.  [00:01:50] Tommy Thomas: To our listeners, Alvin and I met, at least for me, in an unusual way. I was conducting the CEO search for the City Gospel Mission in Cincinnati, and I did my LinkedIn research and I liked Alvin's background. I thought he might be a good candidate. So, I called him, and he said, no, he was pretty committed to World Impact, but then he turned the tables on me. He says we need a couple of additional cabinet members. Would you be interested in helping us? And next thing I knew Alvin had recruited me to help him with two searches. I didn't have to submit a proposal or anything.  So, Alvin, I guess I owe you a big thank you for trusting us with that work. [00:02:26] Alvin Sanders:  You did an excellent job. I have two awesome team members, and we're a better organization because of your work.  [00:02:34] Tommy Thomas: Thank you. Take me into a little bit of your background. I'm always curious how people got their start.  What do you remember about your childhood that maybe has contributed to the man you are today? [00:02:44] Alvin Sanders: Yeah, so I'm a military brat. My father was in the Air Force for 30 years and we lived globally. For instance, I spent four years in Okinawa, Japan during my formative language years, and I don't remember this, but I've been told that I used to be able to speak fluent Japanese, so I wish that I could conjure that up again, but I can't. But that had a big effect on me. Because I grew up what's called a third culture kid. And you can look that term up, but it's essentially a person who could see into different cultures while not being in them, I would say you grow up organically, culturally flexible. That's probably the easiest way to describe it. And so that led me to ministry. I've been in ministry for 32 years. I started in ministry at 21. Worked at a variety of places but they always had a connection to the urban context of making disciples there. And I worked with the Evangelical Free Church of America planting an inner-city church in the city of Cincinnati. I worked for the aforementioned City Gospel Mission before that under their president who's no longer with them, Roger Howell. And then I also worked for the Evangelical Free Church of America denomination, running their All-People initiative. And then I came the World Impact as a Senior Vice President in 2015 and then became president in 2017.  And this is where I hang my hat.  [00:04:06] Tommy Thomas: So, growing up all over the world, what was high school like for you?  [00:04:10] Alvin Sanders: My dad ended up retiring in Columbus, Ohio, so that's where I spent most of my time. And that's where I went to high school. [00:04:17] Tommy Thomas: And when you got to college, how'd you pick a major? [00:04:21] Alvin Sanders: The first major that I picked was Physical Therapy, and the first college that I went to was Bowling Green State University near Toledo, Ohio. And while on campus I got very involved with a campus ministry. None of the major ones, but just a small one that was started by a fellow student. And it was during that time I said, man, I think God's calling me to do this full time. So, I ended up transferring to Cincinnati Christian University and as they say, the rest is history. [00:04:52] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people might be surprised to know about you that maybe is not on your LinkedIn profile or not in any writing anywhere? [00:05:01] Alvin Sanders: Oh, let's see. That I'm a homebody. Much to my wife's chagrin. A perfect day for me is doing nothing. It is sitting in my recliner downstairs with food and drink and watching good sports or good news stories or whatever, but I love to do nothing.  [00:05:27] Tommy Thomas: Now that would come as a surprise just from my working with you because in our relationship, you've been out and about and upfront and returning from a speaking engagement or headed to one.  [00:05:38] Alvin Sanders: Yes, and I'm sure that's probably what plays into those times when I don't have anything to do. I cherish them.  [00:05:43] Tommy Thomas: Take me back to your first management job when you actually had somebody that you were responsible for. What do you remember about that? [00:05:51] Alvin Sanders: The crazy thing, it was both a blessing and a curse, was the first ministry position I've ever held. I had pretty significant responsibilities. And I learned I can be an intense person.  God bless the first people that I had to supervise and the first volunteers I had to direct because with a military and athletic background and an intense personality – I'm sure those people got fried. I was probably a marine minister; I would say so to speak. And what I remember is God's providence and blessing the success of the things that I did. And I also had a lot of learning lessons about what it means to really invest and treat people with respect and dignity.  [00:06:44] Tommy Thomas:  You've had a long career in ministry and I'm sure you've had times that have “tested your mettle”. Maybe can you take us into one of those and what you learned or maybe didn't learn from it?  [00:06:55] Alvin Sanders:  The biggest, one of those things, Tommy, that tested my mettle was when me and my wife planted at a church in inner-city Cincinnati. About six months into the church planting experience, there was a police shooting of a young black teenager by a white police officer. This was spring of 2001 and the neighborhood in which we planted a church where the shooting took place exploded in civil disobedience. And you want to talk about the crucible of ministry and trying to figure out what to do. We were young church planters. Six months in just trying to get a church together and draw people, and then all of a sudden, this thing happens. And we learned to depend upon God and that Proverbs, I think it's Proverbs 3:5-6, trust in Lord and all that you do and lean not on your own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths because there's no strategic plan for planting a church in the middle of a race riot. There just isn't. So, we really learned what it means to trust the Lord and invest in people deeply, invest in a neighborhood deeply so that we can both improve the lives and hearts of the people as well as the neighborhood and pursue the common good.  And so, that changed the trajectory of my life.  [00:08:15] Tommy Thomas: So yeah, pursuing the common good. What did that look like, could you take us into how you executed that?  [00:08:22] Alvin Sanders: Yes. It starts with the philosophical bent of you have to be deeply committed to the people of the neighborhood and the place that it's in. There are no walls to the church.  The people who are typically in communities of poverty, folk come in there and they don't have a deep commitment to them. They come and go as they please. They don't have a long-term commitment to them. And so, in terms of the people, it's just a biblical process of, evangelism, discipleship, helping them become better people in Christ. But in terms of commitment to place we utilized very heavily a concept called asset-based community development, or ABCD, where you map out the assets of a community. Because when it comes to communities of poverty, in a lot of places, people always look at what's wrong with the community. Asset-based community development says every community has things that are wrong. What's right with the community? And look at what's right with the community and see how you can be. How you can fill the glass up, so to speak. If the glass is half full or half empty is the negative stuff half full? Is the water in the glass? So how do you raise the level of water, so to speak? And so, when we did our asset-based mapping, we saw that what the community did not have was many services for the working poor. Yeah, because most of the people who are in poverty are working. They're not the folks standing on the corner saying, please, brother, can you spare a dime? They're not those people. Not that those people aren't in poverty, but that's not what the face of poverty looks like. The face of poverty in the United States looks like a single mother with kids who's working a service industry job. And so, we really began a ministry towards that group. Working with my wife to establish a food pantry and health check center in the back part of the church. So, we established a food pantry that people could utilize once a month because that's really all they needed once we did our surveying. And that helped them stretch their check. They could come in, they could get the groceries, and they maybe had money for three weeks, but then this would be the fourth week. And then also while they were there, we partnered with Xavier University with their nursing student program, and nursing students would be in the back and they could get they can get diabetes check and things of that nature. And then if they had any health issues, we would refer them down the street to a local health clinic. And then we also had a person, one of our staff members who would sit in the back and say, hey - anybody have any spiritual concerns or any spiritual or anything, you want us to pray for this, that or the other, or just see general life advice from the Word then they could go stop there.  So, we had a three-stop shop where people could come get their food, they could get their health checked, and then they can be ministered to spiritually as well. [00:11:28] Tommy Thomas: Obviously most of my experience with you has been in the hiring mode. And I probably know a little bit of the answer to this next question. But for people who wonder what a CEO looks for in senior leadership, take us into some of the qualities that you're looking for in leaders. [00:11:43] Alvin Sanders: Yes. Basically, and I don't remember which guru I got this from, or what book I read it from, so it's not original to me. But there are two main characteristics that I always look for in my team. Can they do the job right and can they do the job well? Can they do the job right has to do with their moral character and whether or not they fit into our core values at World Impact. So we screened for that, and then we hired you all to screen for can they do the job well. That has to do with skillsets and the abilities that people may have in order to do the job description that we have designed for that particular job.  Can they do the job right? Can they do the job well? Those are the two big things that I look for in my team to contribute to the leading of World Impact. [00:12:35] Tommy Thomas: I remember, and yours was the first, and I guess so far the only client I've had that used this thing, I think you called it a circle of voices. And I thought that was cool. And every listener may use it in their work. I don't know. But take us into that. [00:12:49] Alvin Sanders: When we're making major decisions, we don't do it for every decision. We do it only for major decisions. We do a circle of voices and again, I don't remember where I picked this up from, but what we do is whatever the decision that we have to make, we give to everybody around the table, you have to speak for at least two minutes, but no more than five minutes and give your perspective on what decision we need to make and why, and it's like you're in court, you're a lawyer, make your case for why, what do we, what do you think we need to do and why? And nobody else can speak while that person is speaking. And then I'm literally the timekeeper. So you only get five minutes. You must speak for at least two minutes, but you only get five. And then after each person has spoken, then we open the floor up for dialogue and debate and come to a collaborative decision.  [00:13:52] Tommy Thomas: On the flip side of that, and I hadn't been with you on this, but what goes into how you finally decide somebody's got to go and what have you seen the best way to do it?  [00:14:02] Alvin Sanders: We try to err on the side of grace. And we believe in weekly feedback. So, our supervisors theoretically are coaches. So theoretically, if we say you're to supervise someone, it's because we believe that you can coach that person to be a better person who contributes to the mission of our organization. So, if someone is constantly not living up to what we desire for them to do within our organization, then we utilize the tool that everybody else utilizes a Performance Improvement Plan or PIP. And some people think, once I've been PIPPED that's just the time period that you have for me to work until I have to find another job. But that's not what we utilize it for. Hopefully, we really want to say, hey, we want you to improve. And there have been people that we have put on Performance Improvement Plans that they actually emerged out of that, and they kept going. And then after a PIP, if you still aren't doing what you need to do, then we just have a brutally honest conversation with the person. Just say, hey, it's not working out here for you. It's time for you to transition out. We always work hard to get people to self-select out. And 90 - 95% of the time, that's what happens. We are long-suffering. We practice the spiritual discipline of patience. It's no surprises. The only people who get fired from our organization are people who do egregious violations of our core values. If you do an egregious violation of our core values, then you must go, because we've communicated our core values to you. Core values to us are not just some booklet that sits on a shelf. We actually live them. We do things to catalyze them. So, most people that get fired, they've egregiously violated, but the overwhelming majority of people who are World Impact transition out. If they're not, we help them figure out how to transition out and self-select. [00:16:15] Tommy Thomas:  You mentioned you were in senior leadership fairly early on. Who were some of the mentors in your life and how did that play out? [00:16:23] Alvin Sanders: Yeah, I've had several mentors the aforementioned City Gospel Mission and Roger Howell. He was my first boss who really helped shape and mold me into the person I am today. When I worked in Chicago for two years and I worked at a place called Circle Urban Ministry, Glen Kayron was someone who invested in me deeply. When I did my PhD studies Dr. Michael Dantley, who's a prominent African American pastor in the city of Cincinnati, as well as he was a professor at Miami University, and I studied under him. He played a key role in my development as well.  [00:16:59] Tommy Thomas:   Did these people see something in you, and of course I guess your bosses, they can understand that. But did mentors see something in you and seek you out, or did you see something in them and figured you'd be better if you could sit under their tutelage? [00:17:16] Alvin Sanders: Well, it's a combination of both. And I actually left one out that he's probably the person who saw the most in me at the beginning, and that's a gentleman ny name of Dr. Jonathan Burnham, who his church, Hope Evangelical Free Church, was the parent church of my church, River of Life church. And he saw me as a tremendous leader. Way more than I did. I had leadership characteristics, but I was extremely raw and rough around the edges, and Jonathan Burnham really invested in me and my family and helped us when we planted River of Life Church. And those seven, eight years I spent under his tutelage were tremendous. [00:17:56] Tommy Thomas: I never phrased this question exactly right, but I guess I'm looking for when you recognized, and maybe you acknowledged that you did have leadership potential and some of those rough edges began to smooth and you felt more comfortable moving.  Do you remember that?  [00:18:11] Alvin Sanders:  I'm arrogant enough to have never thought I wasn't a leader.  It was never about that for me. What it was about for me was getting more polished. If I was in the room, I was going to lead, that's just the way it was going to go because that's the way my personality type I'm told, so the old Myers Briggs, I am an ENTJ, and I'm told that's a characteristic of that personality type that we either lead or we influence. The head leaders, we take our ball, and we go home. That's basically our personality type. Okay. So, for me, it was a matter of how to be a good godly leader. How to get polished to be able to do that instead of just leading rough shot and wild.  [00:18:56] Tommy Thomas: Thinking about your team do y'all have any team-building exercises that you use that you found effective as you try to bring this group together? [00:19:05] Alvin Sanders: We have a meeting rhythm as a team. We get together for 90 minutes every four or five weeks, and then once a quarter we do a two-and-a-half day offsite. And the offsite is a combination of relationship building as well as business items. During our 90-minute time together, we always start our meetings off by sharing one good thing. What's one good thing professionally or personally that's happened to us since our last time together? We also always have prayer time together. And during our offsites, we have extended sharing, and extended prayer because I have a saying that I care much more about who you are as a person than what you do. And we live that. And we live that out. And that's the biggest thing that we do as an executive team in order to, for us to be glued to one another.  [00:20:03] Tommy Thomas: So y'all have operated as a virtual organization from a long time ago. And obviously, it's worked, or you wouldn't be doing it.  Tell us a little bit about that.  [00:20:13] Alvin Sanders: Yes. We were virtual before it was cool to be virtual. And the prior president to me, Efrem Smith, he's the one who implemented that. And then when I came in being virtual can be done, but you have to be very intentional about relationship building, like the things that I just talked about. Operating a virtual ministry can be done but you must be VERY intentional about relationship building. We have monthly prayer times where we have all staff get on Zoom for an hour, and half that hour we spend in prayer, both large group and small group. And in the other half, we highlight two staff members where we just do some lighthearted questions and answers and let everybody get to know one another. Once a year we gather all staff together for one day of team meetings, and then two and a half days of really just fun. And investing in one another and encouraging one another around one of our core values. Because we have five core values. So, we do a theme each year.  So, we do a lot of intentional relationship-building. And we just experimented with something that we're probably going to keep and that it's in the spring. We've had regional gatherings, so we have staff spread off all across the country and we gather staff for a day in Cincinnati, a day in Wichita, Kansas, and a day in Long Beach. And based on where you lived, you went to one of those locations and we had some training and team-building time. So really to sum it all up, it's intentional relationship building.  [00:21:45] Tommy Thomas: What was the biggest lesson on the positive front that your team took out of Covid relative to management and leadership? [00:21:54] Alvin Sanders: Wow. The biggest lesson. [00:22:00] Tommy Thomas: Something that you might take forward. You might think COVID is gone, but we're still going to probably do that.  [00:22:04] Alvin Sanders: Actually, you know what? It's what we just talked about because we weren't doing all that before covid. We were virtual, but we weren't gathering, we were not utilizing the tool of technology like we do now, and we were not gathering like we do now. [00:22:21] Tommy Thomas: I thought early on that Covid was bound to have some kind of silver lining and usually everybody that I talked to, there's some kind of silver lining for it. [00:22:32] Alvin Sanders: And that's what it was because we weren't we started praying online together because this is a serious time. We want to pray for our country and pray for each other. Let's get online once a month and all pray together. And it was like, you know what? This is pretty awesome. Let's keep doing it.  [00:22:47] Tommy Thomas: What's the most dangerous behavior or trait that you've seen derail a leader's career? [00:22:53] Alvin Sanders: The number one thing I think that either makes or derails a leader's career is emotional intelligence. Having self-awareness of your strengths and your weaknesses and adjusting accordingly. Being able to look at others and not see them as an object in your way or just, not as human beings and people actually caring about them and their work and their contribution. The number one thing I think that either makes or derails a leader's career is emotional intelligence. Having self-awareness of your strengths and your weaknesses and adjusting accordingly. As well as them as people, individually, people who do not have good emotional intelligence. Eventually, the house burns down. That's what I've seen.  [00:23:39] Tommy Thomas:   It's been said that we learn the most from our failures or our mistakes. If that's true, why is it that most of us are so afraid to fail? [00:23:48] Alvin Sanders: I don't think you can learn, Tommy, unless you do fail. I have a weird goal and that's to fail every day. Because if I'm not making mistakes, that means I'm not pushing myself to be the best person I could be.  Because no one knows everything. The way you get to learn things is you have to fail at it first. It's impossible to know something until you have some failures. It's impossible to know something until you have some failures, and then in those failures, you say, okay, what can I pick up and learn from this? And then you move forward.  [00:24:19] Tommy Thomas:  I was talking to Alec Hill, the President Emeritus of InterVarsity, or maybe it was Rich Stearns.  I forget which one. But anyway, they said, “Never trust a leader who doesn't have a limp”.  [00:24:31] Alvin Sanders: Yeah - Amen on that.  [00:24:33] Tommy Thomas:  I know you're a busy man and yet you've talked about how you like to rest and enjoy. How do you and your wife handle work-life balance in your leadership role?  You know what, I'm contrarian on that. I think it's impossible to have work-life balance. [00:24:45] Alvin Sanders: You know what, I'm contrarian on that. I think it's impossible to have work-life balance. I don't like to look at it that way. I like to look at it as seasons. There are seasons of busyness and then there are seasons of Sabbath and rest. And that's how I view my life and that's how my wife and I do that now. We're empty nesters now. Yeah, we're much less busy than we used to be. We're still busy. But I think like I said I'm a contrarian and I believe that it's impossible to have a work-life balance or I just never figured out how to do it. It's just,  look, I live my life in 90 days sprints, right? And I go, okay, honey, this is what my 90 days is going to look like. The month of July, not going to see you much. But look here, in mid-August, I'm taking 10 days off. We'll be together. So it's quarter-like to me, it's seasons. And it's seasons of super busyness and then seasons where you're not so busy and when you're not so busy, you make sure to take time to connect relationally with the people who are most important to you. [00:25:52] Tommy Thomas: What's the hardest decision you've had to make in leadership?  [00:26:03] Alvin Sanders: There's been a ton. The hardest decision I had to make concerning my own personal level of leadership was the decision that I made in 2007 to leave the pastorate and work for the denomination. And the thing that got me was the President who unfortunately has passed away, Bill Hamill, he asked me the question, he said, Alvin, do you want to influence one church or do you want to influence 1500 churches? And honestly, I had to ask myself and I said, “I want to influence 1500 churches”. And that was a super tough decision because our church, the Church River of Life. We still go there, by the way, even though we don't pastor there. Me and my wife says that's our third child. We have two wonderful daughters and River of Life. We basically feel like that's our third child. So, it was literally like leaving your child to someone else's care when we left that.  [00:27:03] Tommy Thomas: You worked for a great guy in Bill Hamill. I had the privilege of knowing him over the years and it was always good. I always loved my time with Bill. [00:27:11] Alvin Sanders: Great man. A great man of God. [00:27:14] Tommy Thomas:  Changing up maybe on a little bit lighter note, if you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank and you had deep pockets, what questions would you have to have solid answers for before you would back one of these startups?  [00:27:33] Alvin Sanders: I don't know about specific questions, but I know the things that I would screen for. I would screen for the person - do they know who they are and what they want to do? Essentially, that's where my big questions would be about. Do they know who are they solidly? Can they solidly define who they are as a person and as an individual? And can they solidly describe where they think they want to go?  And take then, therefore, take the organization that they're leading.  [00:28:06] Tommy Thomas:  On the same line of thought, if you were developing a dashboard for a nonprofit to get a look at their health, what are some of your dials going to be?  [00:28:19] Alvin Sanders: I would want to look at how they do with staff development and stability. What kind of people are they hiring? What kind of things are these people doing? Are they organized correctly? The org chart, things of that nature. I would also want to look at their systems and how they do things and what are their processes and how do they get things done. What are the tools that they use? Are they correctly dialed into technology and things of that nature to help them achieve their mission? And as well as the obvious one is financially, how are they doing financially? What's their revenue generation look like? Are they built? Really, if you take those things together, then you can make a determination.  Are they built for sustainability for the long haul?  [00:29:07] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back to a time and tell your younger self one thing, what would that be? [00:29:12] Alvin Sanders: Relax. Relax. Not that serious. Slow down. Why are you running so hard? Where are you trying to go? Stop and smell the roses. [00:29:26] Tommy Thomas: If you had a do-over in your career, what would it be? [00:29:30] Alvin Sanders: I would say in the generality, there were probably opportunities. Here let me give a little bit of context. Okay. God is very merciful to me in that there are opportunities that I turned down, which for whatever reason, circle back to me. And then the second or third time, I recognized it for the opportunity that it was, and I took it. So, the one do over, I would say just speaking in generalities, is being able to recognize opportunities for what they are right off the bat. And not having God have to circle back for me.  [00:30:24] Tommy Thomas: I'm thankful to Alvin for taking time from his schedule to join us today. After we stopped recording. I told him that we could have talked for another hour. I really enjoyed the time with him. I'll post links to Alvin's work with world impact in the show notes. As well as links to some of the books that he has written.  [00:30:24] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website –https://jobfitmatters.com/podcast/. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.   Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing.   Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.  If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode until then stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Alvin Sanders - World Impact Uncommon Church: Community Transformation for the Common Good by Alvin Sanders Redemptive Poverty Work by Alvin Sanders Bridging the Diversity Gap: Leading Toward God's Multi-Ethnic Kingdom by Alvin Sanders   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Alvin's LinkedIn Profile

[00:00:00] Tom Lin: I had no idea what InterVarsity was when I got to college. A group of sophomores knocked on my door, were persistent, and invited me to Bible study. I checked it out. They were persistent. Again, I joined a small group, so InterVarsity really reached out to me and I had a great experience in a small group Bible study my freshman year. The community I loved and then I loved doing ministry. I learned how to serve others and reach out to others and minister to others, and I had a blast and just got more involved in and grew as a leader in university.  +++++++++++++++++++ Our guest today is Tom Lin, the Presidency of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I had the privilege of meeting Tom, when our company, JobfitMatters Executive Search, was retained by the Board of Directors of InterVarsity to conduct the search that brought Tom to be their President. Tom took his undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard.  In addition to his day job as President of InterVarsity, Tom serves on several nonprofit boards. Let's pick up on that conversation. [00:01:10] Tommy Thomas: Before we dive too deep into your professional career, take us back to your childhood.  What two or three experiences do you remember as being formative?  [00:01:17] Tom Lin: Looking back at my childhood a couple things come to mind from my young childhood. I remember distinctly in third grade as a child visiting Taiwan. That's the country where my father immigrated, my father and mother immigrated from. And I'll never forget visiting his hometown in the countryside. His family was a farmer. And it really gave me a sense of who my dad was, the poorest of the poor in the community. He was the only child of eight children to go to elementary school and high school, much less college. And there was this conversation that I overheard him talk with a friend of his when we were in Taiwan, and he said his friend said, oh yeah what was that school you went to again? I remember how it took you like two hours to walk to school every day? And my dad had told me stories about how he walked five miles to school every day, but I thought he was exaggerating. And then when his friend literally said, it was like five miles walking to his school every day, it struck me significantly. And I'll never forget that. And I think that just spoke to who my father was, his humility in life. He never felt like he deserved anything. Everything was kind of grace, God's grace in his life. And he had all these different opportunities as life went on, but he remembers where he came from. And in a lot of ways that shaped me. Generally in my life I don't think I deserve anything in particular. I try to remember where my dad came from and that kind of simplicity in life and not feeling I'm supposed to be this or that. It's just, at its core, I'm the son of my father who was a farmer, so anyways, that's shaping, that's a significant experience that I remember.  [00:03:00] Tommy Thomas: How did they get to the states?  [00:03:03] Tom Lin: My dad immigrated after he graduated from college in Taiwan through a scholarship for grad school, so to Mississippi of all places in the late sixties. His college experiences in Mississippi are really interesting stories there as well. Jackson, Mississippi is where he went to graduate school.  [00:03:23] Tommy Thomas: Oh, my goodness. [00:03:27] Tom Lin: Yeah.  [00:03:28] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like for you? [00:03:29] Tom Lin:   High school was a time of generally a lot of fun. I would say high school was very positive for me. Both from a faith perspective, I was involved in my youth group and given a lot of leadership responsibilities. And that actually was a close-knit community where I got to lead a lot, and that gave me a lot of energy. I remember organizing things, calling people every week, preparing things. We had a very active youth group of a few dozen people of different ages from pretty much middle school through post-college. And as a young sophomore in high school or junior, I was leading the whole thing. And yeah, that was an important part of my high school experience. And then in my actual school, that was just, it's a lot of fun. I was active in sports, a lot of extracurriculars. And had a good number of friends. I loved going to school every day. I loved seeing people. I loved sports and being active.  So, it was a very positive experience.  [00:04:31] Tommy Thomas: Being Chinese American, did you feel different or were you pretty much one of the crowd?  [00:04:37] Tom Lin: Yeah, certainly at that time and age, I began to understand more of my ethnic background, I went to a school which was majority white for sure. I was one of the few Asian Americans in my grade. And no, I mean I certainly noticed those dynamics. But if anything, it gave me a lot of experiences being a cross-cultural person every day. I went to a setting that was different from my home or my church, which was an ethnic church. It was actually a Taiwanese church that I went to. So, I would cross cultures every day. And it certainly has helped me as an adult in my career as well. These days I'm in a different setting, multiple different settings in different cultures every day, to experience that in high school every day, certainly helped develop me and shape me positively and prepare me for the future. [00:05:24] Tommy Thomas: You went to Harvard, and you studied economics. Tell us a little bit about that. How does a guy choose economics as a major? [00:05:30] Tom Lin: I often say, my major is economics, but in many ways my major was InterVarsity. It was the campus ministry I was involved with. Going to Harvard, which was a generally liberal arts school. So, there's no business major per se.  Economics was the most popular major. It was general enough, social science, and so I fell into it. It wasn't that I was passionate about economics. However, I would say looking back now, I see how God used it. I've been in pretty much full-time vocational ministry most of my life, with the exception of a few years, and economics helps me think about systems, systematically about things. Trends help me analyze things, analyze this macro and micro. I think economics, certainly starting economics certainly helps me with today. I would not have made that connection though if you just assumed that I never use economics anymore, but I do use some of the ways you're taught to think.  [00:06:33] Tommy Thomas: How did you connect with InterVarsity? [00:06:36] Tom Lin: It was InterVarsity who reached out to me. I had no idea what InterVarsity was when I got to college and a group of sophomores knocked on my door, were persistent, and invited me to Bible study. I checked it out. They were persistent. Again, I joined a small group, so InterVarsity really reached out to me and I had a great experience in a small group Bible study my freshman year. The community I loved and then I loved doing ministry. I learned how to serve others and reach out to others and minister to others, and I had a blast and just got more involved in and grew as a leader in university.  [00:07:12] Tommy Thomas: Early in your career, you helped establish IFES in Mongolia.   What was that like and what was the hardest part of that? [00:07:22] Tom Lin: Yeah, so in the early 2000's, my wife, Nancy and I went to Mongolia, and it was a context which really was a pioneering context, we call it. There's not much Christian ministry going on. The Bible was translated in the year 2000.  We arrived in 2001-2002 where, you know, there was a lot of excitement for this new Bible. Church planting was going crazy. People were investing a lot in church planting. I would say that was an exciting experience because we were on the front end of a huge decade of growth in the Mongolian church. And yeah, we wanted to go because people needed to hear about Jesus and most Mongolians had never heard of the gospel before. And so what an opportunity to go and focus on student ministry, campus ministry, specifically planting a new campus ministry movement in Mongolia. And it was Mongolian, the goal was that it would be Mongolian led indigenous, that we'd raise up Mongolian staff and eventually a Mongolian board and praise God that those things happened over a period of time. [00:08:32] Tommy Thomas: Can you think of anything that you learned there that you've carried forward? Any particular leadership lesson that you still use today?  [00:08:43] Tom Lin: Yeah, many, for sure. I would say in Mongolia we learned a few helpful missiological concepts that I think is helpful for every leader to think about. One is, you enter with an exit strategy.  You never assume you're going to be there forever. Generally, I don't think it's helpful for missionaries to stay in one place forever. And so, you're always thinking about how I can develop this movement or this organization to be self-sustaining so that it no longer depends on me. I think that's helpful for any organizational leader, and certainly you're always thinking about succession planning and how do you develop future leaders, and what's your best contribution? And can you pass and delegate your responsibilities to someone else so you can work on something else? And I think those principles were really helpful. And I think those are some significant lessons and things that continue to hold dearly.  [00:09:41] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to mentoring.   That seems to be a theme in a lot of leaders' lives that I speak with. Have you had a particular mentor or has that played a role in your development? [00:09:52] Tom Lin: It's interesting. I think as a Gen Xer, I'm of a Gen X generation. Growing up I didn't think too much about mentoring. I think the millennials are much more open to it. And particularly, you may have interviewed folks, the millennial Boomer connection is very strong. Gen Z now appreciates mentoring, but Gen Xers, generally, thought we could figure it out ourselves, in a lot of ways. So, I didn't value it, I would say earlier in my career. And then it wasn't until later that it was interesting. It wasn't until later that I found a mentor that reached out to me. His name is Steve Hayner. He's the former President of InterVarsity in the nineties. And Steve cared for me. He invited me to his home. He eventually would play a mentoring role, which basically meant in my life of key moments, key decision-making moments in my life. He entered and would give me his advice, or I would ask for it. And yeah, he periodically would show up. I would seek him out when I was trying to decide a career decision or if I had just a significant life question I was wrestling with. So, Steve would've been one of those mentors. I've had other ones, another one in my life is Leighton Ford. I still do spiritual retreats with him. In fact, I have one coming up soon. And he's been a different kind of mentor, more a spiritual guide in helping me do some reflection in my life. [00:11:20] Tommy Thomas: Steve and Leighton are two very different personalities.  [00:11:26] Tom Lin: Yes, they are. They are.  [00:11:27] Tommy Thomas: I've had the chance to work with both of them over the years, and as I remember Steve is being so soft spoken and yeah, you wouldn't know he is in the room unless somebody pointed him out and Leighton's a little more forward and a lot more energy in the room when Leighton's in the room. [00:11:42] Tom Lin: That's right. Yeah. It's certainly different and that's also helpful I think, in mentoring to have different types of leaders as mentors. And yeah, so I feel lucky that these two in particular reached out to me and initiated with me in different ways. And, yeah, I think they played a significant role.  For sure.  [00:12:03] Tommy Thomas: Usually if people get to your level, they end up getting most things done through teams. And I'm probably assuming that's true about you. Maybe tell me about what you think was your most dynamic team as you think back over the years. And it could have been in student ministry, it could be an executive ministry. [00:12:20] Tom Lin: I think I've had the privilege of working with a lot of great teams and I think they're all very dynamic. I think probably one of the most exciting teams and exciting moments was when I directed the Urbana 2012 conference, my first Urbana event. I directed a huge ambitious event where we're preparing for usually two years in advance for these five days where about 18,000 young people come together to explore global missions. Right? And so many facets of it from operations, the communications to recruitment, to vision casting and budgeting for it. And it was like running an organization. The team we had needed to be dynamic, needed to be collaborative, needed to work with urgency at times. And, we did it and it was a phenomenal conference.  And so that was probably one of the more dynamic teams, and team experiences.  [00:13:29] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken with a team?  [00:13:34] Tom Lin: That one I would say was one for sure. To have key goals like seeing 18,000 people come or partnering with 300 organizations. We had come to the event, managing thousands of volunteers and then a world class program. There was a particular moment at the Urbana. We called it the join in where we partnered with World Vision. What we did was we assembled something like, I believe it was to speak accurately, I want 40,000 - 50,000 medical caregiver kits within a 90-minute program time slot at the conference. These would eventually be shipped to Swaziland and other parts in Africa for AIDS caregivers to use. And we did it at Urbana in this massive stadium with trucks on the stage. And it was just a really ambitious undertaking. And within 90 minutes, these 18,000 students put together 40,000 kits. It was an active experiential event, and then these trucks pulled away with being fully loaded with these kits and they were like on its way to Swaziland. It was pretty amazing how it all came together, but it took a lot of coordination, a lot of preparation to pull that off. That was a fun project within the bigger Urbana project.  [00:15:04] Tommy Thomas: Let's switch a little bit. Our topic overall is next generation leadership. What are some of the things either that you're doing or that you're seeing being done that you think is contributing to this next generation moving into place? [00:15:18] Tom Lin:   Yeah. I ask that a lot. Our bread and butter. What we do is develop the next generation of leaders. We do that on campus. We do that with student leaders. I think one way I'll answer the question is how we develop the next generation of leaders within our organization because I get asked that question a lot in terms of staff or employees. I think the keys are really around first intentionality. I think you have to be intentional. It doesn't just happen. People often say to me I don't have any, I don't have any potential people, so what can I do? I think it takes intentionality to build your pool of people and then to invest in the right people within that pool. So, intentionality creating, and that might include creating access. So every year I host what I call the president's living room consultation. I bring about a dozen or more emerging next generation leaders into my home for three days in the living room when we talk. And I give them access to me and I give them access to other leaders. And I think sometimes the key to developing future leaders or giving them access to current leaders you have to be intentional though. And then I think another thing we do is we offer stretch assignments. So, to develop the next generation, you have to give them tough assignments. So, it's going to be hard for them to develop into, let's say, the next level without giving them risk taking opportunities to stretch assignments where they can prove themselves or learn from tough assignments in addition to their day job. So anyways, those would be a couple things. I'd say, yeah, intentionality, access stretch assignments.  [00:16:58] Tommy Thomas:  You've mentioned two or three generations here, so you've got the boomers and the Xers, and have you noticed any difference in their proclivity to take risks?  [00:17:09] Tom Lin: Oh yes. Yeah, of course. Generally, for the millennials, again generally speaking, and generational theorists would agree with this, and studies have been done. Because of their upbringing. And the millennials have seen mostly prosperity and the rapid advance of certain technologies, iPhone generations, such apps that can solve the world's biggest problems generally. They're willing to take risks because they think, and they see the opportunity to change the world. They can do it. And so, their proclivity to take risks is, they're fine with it. Gen Z, the current student generation. They've seen some hard things. They've experienced the great recession.   The world's not their oyster and everything's not come easy. Mental health crisis. So generally, they're more risk averse. And what used to be when, to millennia you might say, hey everyone charge. Let's go, let's take the mountain, let's take the hill. You can do it.  For the Gen Z folks, that's not an effective rallying cry. Usually, you need to say let's do it together. We're behind you. You have the support you need. I'll be your mentor along the way. Or you lower yourself and take the big goal, and you break it up into three pieces and you say, hey the first step is this. You can do that first step and then we'll do the second step.  And so, it is different.  [00:18:33] Tommy Thomas: Maybe a more global leadership question. What's the most dangerous behavior or trait that you've observed that can derail a leader's life or career?  [00:18:47] Tom Lin: Yeah. There have been studies done about derailers. I think for me I don't see it so much as you do this one big thing, or you have one big trait and it's going to all of a sudden sneak up on you and it's going to blow up in your face or something. For me the most dangerous behavior is the collection of small decisions that a leader makes. Small steps. So, for example, I think when it comes to money, we can easily get tempted to have a deserving mindset. I deserve that thing. I worked so hard, that little decision or I should need that thing because I'm a little tired. I deserve a little bit of this or that. And the collection of small choices adds up to one day, a leader can be tempted to take something or make a decision that they shouldn't do. Or another example is, my time is valuable. They've heard that a leader and you begin to buy into that, and you start making little decisions. They start off innocently. My time is valuable, so therefore I should do X or Y or the organization should do X extra Y for me. And then where's the fine line, the line starts to blur and it goes into my time. I am so valuable that I should be able to do extra Y. So, a collection of small choices can easily build toward the point where a leader really does something completely unethical or, yeah, derails them completely. I always tell people to watch the small steps and the small decisions you're making.  [00:20:24] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anyone's ever given you? [00:20:43] Tom Lin: Yeah, maybe I'll just share something more recent I've been thinking about. I was reading Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, his autobiography, and one of the things he mentions is, people don't want to follow leaders who are pessimistic.  It's not a formula for success. Generally, people's inclinations, they want to follow a leader who's hopeful who is optimistic about his future. And I think generally that's something that I've abided by, even if there are challenges, people want to hear about the hope you have. People want to follow a leader who's optimistic about what's to come, who can paint a picture of why the future, or the preferred future, is better than today's future to today's reality. And I think that's so true and so important in leadership.  [00:21:33] Tommy Thomas: What do you do and maybe what do you and Nancy do for work-life balance?  [00:21:39] Tom Lin: Oh, work-life balance. I think. You know how I view that question? I think to me, work life balance is you have to work at both. You have to work at your work and you have to work at home, or your personal life, right? So it's not so much you work here and then you just veg out, so I think you work at both. And for me it meant I'm committed. I had both children at home. Now I have one at home, but I've had both at home for quite a while. I was committed to evening dinners at home, no matter what work demands were. I was committed to evening dinners at home when I was in town and I didn't carry work into dinner. And if I really needed to do work later at night, I'd wait till the kids go to sleep. So very careful about my evenings and then maintaining a Sabbath, there's a reason why the Lord commanded us to keep Sabbath and observe a Sabbath. And I think that really helps having the discipline of Sabbath where you're making sure you rest one day a week. [00:22:35] Tommy Thomas: What are you most excited about in life right now?  [00:22:40] Tom Lin: On one hand with my family, I'm excited about my kids growing up. One of my daughters is in college, and I'm in college ministry, so it's an exciting time for me to see my own daughter enter into this fantastic life stage. I think in work generally I'm excited about what we call our 2030 calling a vision. At InterVarsity we have a vision to see every campus in the country reach with the gospel. It's a fantastic vision for 2030 that is bigger than just InterVarsity. It's collaborative. We're working with over a hundred different organizations to see every campus have a gospel movement. And that's really exciting for me because it gets at my planting my experience in Mongolia wanting to see the unreached reached, kind of mentality. And as well as, I love campus ministry, so I want to see other organizations and churches get excited about campus ministry. And then ultimately, I want to see students' lives transformed and more students reached. It is a combination of a lot of things that go into this 2030 calling and that's what's making life exciting right now?  [00:23:52] Tommy Thomas: Let's reflect back a minute. The last two or three years we've lost two of your peers have gone on to be with the Lord and Steve Douglass and Denny Rydberg, and I know you've worked alongside those men and with them. What kind of reflections do you have on their leadership? [00:24:10] Tom Lin: Oh I would say Denny I did not have the chance to work with as closely, but we certainly collaborate a lot with the current CEO of Young Life, Newt Crenshaw. I would say with Steve Douglas, I did have a good number of years where I worked alongside. We met together to pray and fellowship with our spouses twice a year. My reflection on Steve is what I was saying about the small decisions equaling big ones. He was very aware that Steve was humble. One of the things he would do is he would decline a first grade up first-class upgrade on airplanes his entire life. He traveled a lot, but he would always decline an upgrade. I think he was very aware that even the small choices we make where we subtly begin to think that we deserve an upgrade or an extra treat or whatever, he wanted to be a model of simplicity and humility. And so, he would decline it every time. That's amazing. And then the second thing that struck me about Steve Douglas is he's always sharing the gospel, always sharing the gospel, always wherever he was, whether it wa at a restaurant with a waiter, a waitress, on an airplane, in a store. He would always just talk to somebody and find a way to share the gospel, and it was just very inspiring.  [00:25:29] Tommy Thomas: What are you going to say next week when you get a call from somebody that either thinks they want to be a leader, or maybe they're already in the leadership track and they're having second thoughts? How are you counseling our NextGen leaders? [00:25:47] Tom Lin: I think for NextGen, there's something about perseverance and paying the cost. So, I do think what I would counsel them is and it's harder to do I think in our North American context some of our majority world friends and leaders understand suffering and the role of suffering more. I think we're still less developed in that area. I would say I would counsel, persevere, especially in today's day and age as a leader, you are going to face extreme pressures, criticism, and reasons to hang it up. Reasons to just say I can't do it anymore. And I think I would say, keep on building the support team around you. Who's got your back?  Who is there for you? But when you engage in suffering, just know that's normal. And it happens. It will come. And that's part of the territory in leadership. So, I think that's how our counsel is just encouraging them to persevere and to understand it is a part of the reality, but you don't have to go through it alone. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= I'm grateful to Tom Lin for taking time from his busy schedule to visit with us today. Why are we taking a break next week? It's 4th of July week holiday. And my experience has been that a lot of us take time away from work to spend time with family and friends. We will return the week of July 10 with our next episode.  In the meantime, stay the course on doing your part to make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Urbana IFES - International Fellowship of Evangelical Students   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile    

[00:00:00] Alec Hill: There is something remarkable when you put it on paper, how you create a distance from yourself. It objectifies it, and you're able to stay away from it a little bit. And this has been shown in research out of the University of Texas. So, I'm a real believer in journaling.  It has been a constant and continues to be a regular outlet for me with my pain, with my lamentations, with my anger. And it releases me. I don't know. It's just been a discipline for what now - 50 plus years and it's one of God's gifts to me.  ++++++++++++++++ [00:00:31] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Alec Hill, the President Emeritus of InterVarsity USA.  For regular listeners, you may remember Alec from Episodes 18 and 19 where he and a former board chair at InterVarsity discussed the CEO/ Board Chair working relationship. Alec was President of InterVarsity for 14 years before retiring for health-related reasons. When I recruited him to be the President of InterVarsity, he was the Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Seattle Pacific University. Alec took his law degree from the University of Washington.  Alec, welcome back to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:06] Alec Hill: It's always good to be with you.  [00:01:10] Tommy Thomas:  Episodes 18 and 19. Those seem like a long time ago. [00:01:14] Alec Hill: To you, time is, it has a different clip for me, but yeah, for you it's, you're up to a hundred something now.  [00:01:20] Tommy Thomas: We'll, yeah, I think this we'll be 92 or 93, and yeah, we'll hit Episode 100 sometime in early August. I was trying to remember that quote. That guy told me one time about the early episodes. He said, “The bad news was they probably wouldn't be very good, but the good news was you won't have very many listeners then either”. So, I don't know, some of the early episodes might have been like that. Thank you for coming back. I read the article that you posted on the Christian Leadership Alliance Blog and I was intrigued by it knowing a little bit about your history there, I thought I have to get Alec back.  Maybe take us into that.  As I remember, the name of the article was Finding Gold in Manure. [00:01:59] Alec Hill: Yeah, so the image is when we lose a wedding ring down the sink, we dive in, and even if it goes down the toilet, we go in because the ring is so valuable. So the metaphor is, as leaders, when we go through really bad experiences, I mean we think back on the two or three worst experiences we've ever had as leaders, whether they are our fault or not. And the temptation is just to let the ring go. And not dive, do the dive. But what I've learned is that when you go and you find the ring maybe 80% of its draws are manure, but 20% of it is pure gold. And so often in our worst moments in the suffering that we have we find great meaning. And if we don't learn those lessons at that point in time they'll come back and bite us again.  “If we pause and reflect long enough, pain is a great teacher. Our characters can be transformed more through a day of suffering than a month of study” [00:02:42] Tommy Thomas: I think one of your quotes was “If we pause and reflect long enough, pain is a great teacher. Our characters can be transformed more through a day of suffering than a month of study” [00:02:53] Alec Hill:   Yeah, I think that's really true. And I say that, I wrote that as an academic, right? So, I believe in study, but clearly if we, you by the way, you can learn poorly from pain if pain, if you reacted adversely to it. If you deny it. Or if you're triumphal in some ways over it, if you don't walk right through it head on it's a totally negative experience. But if you actually can redeem the pain is awful. Pain sucks. I'm a two-time cancer survivor, including a bone marrow transplant. I know about pain. So pain is no fun. And likewise, leadership failures. And when people accuse you of being incompetent or immoral that's no fun. But there's a side to this where you have to learn the lessons from that, and then you become a better person and a better leader.  [00:03:37] Tommy Thomas: So why do you think it's so hard for us to reflect on past painful situations?  [00:03:43] Alec Hill: Oh my goodness. I think we hate pain. We're wired to hate pain. Part of my bone marrow transplant was a spinal tap, and I was reflecting on that the other day. And a spinal tap is one of the worst procedures you can ever have, right? They're going in through your back with a needle and they're trying not to hit nerves, and of course they do. I don't want to think about the spinal tap, but what the spinal tap told the doctors was that I didn't have certain conditions so they were able to go ahead with the treatment. And it was a positive treatment with a lot of pain. And I think, again, that's not a bad image here for these. And what I would've asked our listeners to think about is the one worst experience you've ever had as a leader where everything went wrong, where everybody thought you were an idiot or an immoral person. And they lost confidence in you when you came in a room you had, they looked like they had knives out and they were suspicious of you. And that's the moment that we want to capture in this podcast.  [00:04:33] Tommy Thomas: But take me back to some of the other painful experiences. A man with as much leadership as you've had, both at Seattle Pacific and InterVarsity no doubt has had several painful days.  [00:04:44] Alec Hill: Two of my worst moments or months, or even in one case years, one involved, and this is a common one, hiring someone to my senior team who didn't work out. And the person was popular and well liked and I had to let the person go. And then when I let the person go, I couldn't tell all my reasons for doing so when people ask questions. So, you look like you are incompetent in making the hire. You are incompetent in making the dismissal. You're being disingenuous because you're withholding information that few people feel they have the right to have. And you feel like a failure on all counts. I think that particular situation lasted for several months when I just was underwater. And people again lost confidence in me. I think the second one was a more dramatic one, and it involved more people conflict between a senior leader and a director below a report to that person and it blew up. It involved race and gender and all sorts of things, and I didn't particularly handle it well in terms of how I processed and dealt with it, and that pain lasted for a year and a half. And my sort of, I think the sense of my incompetence and how I handled it I felt acutely was the first time I'd gone to see a counselor. I was having dreams. It was one of those completely underwater experiences. That was worse than a spinal tap. If I could put it that way. It was worse. And feeling responsible for allowing people to get hurt that if I'd handled things differently there would've been a lot less hurt in other people's lives. And this is what, 15-20 years ago. I still feel this acutely to this day. So again, my hypothesis, Tommy, is that every leader, every senior leader has a situation like that, that when you ask them what is the main pain point, the worst moment of your leadership time, they have one of these. And that's the kind of situation where you. Your temptation is just to bar the door. Never think about it, just deny it. You don't deny it, but you just relegate it. But the thing is, I learned a lot about myself both good and bad. Through that, I learned about the positives, I learned about my resilience. I came to work every day when I felt like people were extremely doubting me. And I didn't know I had that kind of resilience. So that's one positive aspect of it.  [00:07:00] Tommy Thomas: So you mentioned you went to the counselor for the first time. Was that a hard thing to do to make that appointment? [00:07:05] Alec Hill:  No, I'm not proud about, I don't, I'm not macho in the sense that I wouldn't go to a counselor. I just never felt that kind of need. But I was so far out of it and self-doubting. The disequilibrium in my life was so great. I didn't even know where the ground was, and so I just needed someone to tell me I wasn't crazy, right? And to assure me that this will over time improve because I think when we get into a hopeless spiral as leaders and this is why, as Tommy, you've seen people quit. You've seen people fired there. It's dark. It's just really dark and all of the lightness when you first take a job in senior leadership, you go, why in the world did I ever do this? There's so much pain associated with these senior roles of vicarious suffering for the community. Not to mention my own mistakes that you go, this is overwhelming.  +++++++++++++++++ [00:07:59] Tommy Thomas: I read a lot of Joyce Meyers. She's a good writer. And she talks about, in one of her articles, something called the Judas Kiss Test, the test of being betrayed by friends we have loved, respected, and trusted. I guess my hunch is that most people in leadership, who've been there very long, have had an experience like this. Have you had one of those and how did you deal with it?  [00:08:20] Alec Hill: I don't know if betrayal is the word, I would use the word undercut. I have been undercut and it is a horrible feeling with someone who you reasonably expect loyalty. And a common sort of friend who goes around you to do something that is intentionally harmful. It's a smack of ice. Remember the ads where they would put the ice buckets on people and they would, the ice shower or whatever it was? That's one of those experiences. So, I think that's another example of the kind of pain that leaders experience. When who you thought was a friend turns out to be someone who's out to get you. And it's a horrible, lonely spot. And I think, I'm reading about David and King Saul now, and of course, Saul threw spears at David, he did all sorts of things, when David had done nothing wrong. And how did David handle that without killing Saul when he had the opportunity or taking revenge? That's what we, and that's the Christ-like characteristic of not being naive and saying it isn't there and not confronting it. We have to do those things, but not taking, not seeking vengeance or vindication. I think when we seek our own vindication, where we run into trouble that's the Lord's job, but we have to be resilient. We have to call it out. We have to not pretend it's not there. But when you don't, you can't, when you get in a hole, when somebody betrays you, you can't really vindicate yourself. And that's really hard. Others have to do that for you, and the Lord has to do it. I had one situation. I'm shifting gears. I'm just thinking about where my vindication probably took five years and it wasn't complete. But I did see some measure of vindication. I had one person who told me that I was a pretty bad person and a bad leader. Come back several years later and say that she understood why I did what I did. And the story on the street had changed during those years, but it was a very slow. I wanted to fix it a lot quicker. Someone explained it's like when you hit a feather pillow and it explodes and goes all over the place. It's like trying to, when your reputation is out, you're trying to recapture all those feathers and you can't, and if you're a control person, it's really hard.  [00:10:36] Tommy Thomas: You write a lot. Your articles are many, you have published two books.  But do you journal much about your inner feelings and if so, what have you learned from that?  [00:10:46] Alec Hill: It's funny you should ask because I am now transcribing all my journals from when I was 17 years old, so I'm now up to age 29 in transcribing. There were those dark nights of the soul where I would wake up at 2:00 AM and I would journal for two hours. And there is something remarkable when you put it on paper, how you create a distance from yourself. It objectifies it, and you're able to stay away from it a little bit. And this has been shown in research out of the University of Texas.  So, I'm a real believer in journaling. It has been a constant and continues to be a regular outlet for me with my pain, with my lamentations, with my anger. And it releases me. I don't know. It's just been a discipline for what now - 50 plus years and it's one of God's gifts to me.  [00:11:34] Tommy Thomas: I've been a journaler if that's the word you use for it - maybe not 50 years, but a long time. And this morning I woke up with a couple of dissonant thoughts and I just, I went to my journal and I said, I don't feel much like journaling today, and then I went through those and yeah, after about 30 minutes, I came away with maybe a little bit of distance and maybe a feeling that this is not so bad after all [00:12:00] Alec Hill: Getting back to our theme of gold and manure, one of the things that journaling does is it makes you crystallize your thoughts and put them in writing, and that's where you really learn your gold is the goal. Gold is by reflection. If we don't reflect and so many leaders aren't reflective, I'm by temperament. I'm a future-oriented person. So, reflection is hard for me, and part of the reason I journal is because it compels me. To reflect and what are the lessons learned from this last experience? [00:12:27] Tommy Thomas: I was reading, I don't know if it was a blog or what, by Bob Haskins, the President of One Hope down in Florida. And he wrote, surround yourself with people who know you better than you know yourself and will tell you the truth out of love. This is how we grow. Is the digging in manure, is that a solo act, or is that a cadre or a cohort of friends? [00:12:50] Alec Hill:  It's a very small group of trusted friends. And I'd say it's both. I do think you have to do the solo reflection as we were just talking about journaling, but clearly. I had a chief of staff who I gave total permission after every meeting, after every event, after every conference, after every conversation to tell me what he heard. And he would be quite candid with me. And it was painful. And also, I had a number two person who was my COO, and he had the same green light. And what I found is that they would often tell me things that I did or didn't do in a meeting, and I didn't always agree with them, but I gave them the green light. So, in a sense, I was increasing my level of pain and discomfort by telling these two that they could say to me whatever they saw, but I trusted them that much. And then there was a third person, a VP who I also trusted at that level. And I think you can only take so much beating on your bodies, like being boxed. It looks like being a boxer and some of these are poundings you take when you open yourself up. But the right chastisement from a friend who's loyal and trusting is again the pathway to growth. But you can only take so much of it. I think there it's a limited dose and that's what has to be a limited number of people, that kind of vulnerability. [00:14:03] Tommy Thomas:  I'm a big fan of Nicky Gumball and his Bible in One Year. I'm in that maybe not every day but fairly regular. And recently, one of his comments was,  “Confrontation is not something that I find easy. It is crucial to find the right approach, the right words for the job, or to use a golfing analogy, it's like the skill of knowing which club to use. Those who are skilled at confrontation have a great variety of approaches and words and know when and how to use the appropriate one”. What have you learned about confrontation through your many years in senior leadership? [00:14:41] Alec Hill: First of all, I'm intuitively lousy at it. I'm an angiogram three. I like to be liked. I think that I can fix every situation with charm and with compassion and pastoral skills, and when it comes to really confronting people, I had a VP who was fabulous at it, and I learned a lot from Jim.  It was really funny.  Jim had people who he corrected all the time who loved him. And I asked him How do you do that? How do you speak that kind of truth? It was because he did love them, but he also wouldn't drop bombs on them. He would chunk it out and give them criticism or confrontation in the short term. Now, I will say this, I had a bone marrow transplant eight years ago, and I am much better at confrontation now than I was before. And I think in part what the cancer taught me was life is short. Be more candid, be blunter. And my wife looks at me sometimes and she goes, is this really you? Cancer changed me for the good in this regard in that I'm a better confronter and I'm less worried about what people think of me. Because cancer changed me for the good in this regard in that I'm a better confronter and I'm less worried about what people think of me. Maybe the part of that's aging too, and I don't have a position that I have to defend anymore. I think the other thing is I had to let my reputation and sense of competence, my public competence die when I was at InterVarsity and that's liberating. It sounds crazy to think that when you give up your reputation, it's going to be freeing, but I think that process took 20 years. ++++++++++ [00:16:05] Tommy Thomas:  I know you retired from InterVarsity for health reasons. Did you find when, and I'm sure that was foremost in your mind, but I always like to ask people who've been longtime successful leaders, was much of your identity tied up in being the president of InterVarsity? [00:16:22] Alec Hill: You used the word, successful leader. I'd say I have a mixed report card, to be honest. So that's the first thing I just want to say. This is where the cancer's been a real gift. So, when you almost die, when you're expected to die, you get your identity detached from your role real quickly. And when I left, I was diagnosed, and I was gone six weeks later. And then I had a year of isolation to think about all these things. But I do think I was always aware in the 14 years at InterVarsity that my identity could be too wrapped up. So, I consciously tried to work on that issue. It was something I named, and I recognized it as a great temptation. So, I wasn't perfect, but I think I always recognized that I had been given the baton for a period of time. I would pass it off. It wasn't proprietary and this is what I did, not who, what, not who I am, not who I was. And that was liberating, but the claw of the temptation kept reaching up to grab me. I will say this, Tommy, I was surprised when I left after 14 years with the cancer, how little the identity trapped me. I didn't have this longing for the perks of the job. I didn't worry when people didn't recognize me. I think I'm so grateful to be alive. So, I think that was the gift of the cancer, right? I didn't have what a lot of leaders have when they leave, that huge identity crisis. I was trying to live, and so it just, it went underground. It didn't seem very important. And then by the time I came out, I had a different identity. Yeah so, the identity question's a tricky one for me because what would I have been like without the cancer? I don't know.  [00:17:59] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. Now I was talking recently to a pastor of a huge megachurch, and he retired maybe three years ago.  From all appearances, it seems to have been a very successful transition, and this guy has always been, in my mind, the epitome of humility, and yet he was candid enough to say, Tommy, it is disappointing that the phone doesn't ring as much anymore. That he said that, and I just, I was taken back. I thought, wow, this guy I would've thought if anybody probably had mastered that it would've been him, and yet he said, the phone doesn't ring anymore. And every now and then, that kind of bothers me.  [00:18:36] Alec Hill: Back to the gold image here. I get this bone marrow cancer and I'm in isolation. I come off disability after six months, but I can't be with people because I'm in isolation for another six months. The COO who's acting is the interim president, Jim and I agreed I would be a mentor for six months and then I could do a real job. During those six months, I had 12-14 staff from InterVarsity I was talking with monthly. And I discovered this pastoral sense of who I am. And now that's seven years ago. And so, I never got the sense of being, I worked really hard on what my new purpose was. It was the next generation of leaders, and it was investing in them. The phone rings all the time, but it's because I have, I think largely because I proactively put myself out as a mentor and the richness of these really. I have one guy who I've been with for six, seven years now who just sent me a Mariners jersey. Edgar Martinez is a gift for the year. Totally unexpected because we're both baseball fans and I just am thankful for the depth of these friendships. And then other opportunities have opened up as well. So, I do think that this is back where near death when you face mortality, there's a sense of which everything is a grace. And everything is a gift. So, I have a deeply appreciative sense and I don't feel, the glass is more than half full. It's full. It's a full glass.  +++++++++++++++++ [00:19:54] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. I want to switch to something maybe a little more global. A study by the UK Finance and Mental Health First Aid Department in England said that 83% of the City of London Financial Services employees, so they've considered changing jobs due to stress on their mental health. 83%. How prevalent do you think that might be in the nonprofit sector in the United States? [00:20:19] Alec Hill: I think it's very prevalent. I think when you have undoable missions, which you know, any mission's worth of salt is huge, it's going to transform the world. And you combine that with limited resources, which nonprofits have much more than for-profits, right? You have little money. And you have lots of responsibility which is a pivot point for depression, for feeling like a failure. When you throw into that Covid and the fragility of this new generation coming up in terms of anxiety and mental health, and I actually just wrote a piece on my own anxiety issues I think it's a recipe for problems within nonprofits. And I think generationally, each generation approaches it differently. You have the stoic generation, then you have, as I say, the more the people want to talk about it all the time, it's not going to go away. This is a real problem.  [00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: Here's a Mother Teresa quote, I'd like to respond to. Mother Teresa said, I'm not called to be successful, but I'm called to be faithful. [00:21:20] Alec Hill:  Amen. And we can't guarantee the outcomes. We can guarantee the process. I do think though, when she talks about being faithful, another word for that is accountable. And so accountable, just to be faithful doesn't mean that we're freelancing it or that we cannot think about the consequences of our actions. We are accountable but again, we are accountable to be faithful in what we do, not in exactly what happens. And I think as I reflect back, Tommy, I'm a real strategic planner and I love putting out goals and going for them. I still do, but I'm softening on this one. I think that I will say this, that I think what we said is our strategic plans were always dynamic. And that we would, by the time we were done, about a third of it would be rewritten. The mistake a lot of groups make with strategic plans is they're like cement. You're relying on the Lord for wisdom. When you write them up, you're dreaming about what can be, and then you have to hold them real loosely and you have to constantly change them and edit them. I think the sense of being faithful, that context is we're going to work together towards this common mission in these four or five areas for the next three or four years. But we don't know how it's going to turn out. Let me give you an example. At one point, InterVarsity Press, we had hoped that it would grow by X percent and then we hit the great recession of 2009 and there was no way we were even going to get back to zero, right? Because the publishing industry was underwater. We rewrote the goal. And the goal went down, I'm going to guess 35, 40% and we hit that goal well because of the external environment, because the way you don't control, you have to. So, for us, that was a feel-good, even though it was a loss.  Rather than that, we failed. [00:23:06] Tommy Thomas: It's been said that we probably learned more from our mistakes and our successes. If that's the truth, why? Why are most of us so afraid to make a mistake? [00:23:13] Alec Hill: I'll go back to the spinal tap. We hate pain. And, this false self-truth, back to identity, that we want to project a certain image of who we are and how competent we are, especially people like me. When we realize there's a gap between what we project and who we are, we can do one of two things. We can honestly admit that, or we can fake it.  And faking it really takes a toll. You've seen this, I've seen this. Leaders who are faking it are living on the edge. They become unkind, they become self-protective, they become vindictive, and they don't even recognize themselves in the mirror. So it's really hard to remain truly human as a senior leader if you're a perfectionist, if you're a control freak, if you value your public image, all those things have to die. And it is a very, and the crucifixion of those is very painful and it's ongoing.  [00:24:13] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would you say? [00:24:19] Alec Hill: I think I would say care less about what other people think. And back, this is a common theme here. Don't think so highly of yourself. Relax. Enjoy the ride. I think future-oriented people like me tend to miss the aha moments and the savoring of moments. And I've always been pretty relational, but I'm so goal-oriented and so project oriented that I think that I miss a lot of the magic and the splendor along the way. And again, cancer taught me to slow down and savor. One of the things I do daily, pretty much daily is there's a, near us, there's a city park and I'll go over, it's a five-minute walk and there's a grove of cedar trees and I just go through that cedar tree and I just stop and smell them and I touch them and I just have this sort of sense of God as creator and father. And so I think that's a new wrinkle for me, because I've always been in such a hurry.  [00:25:15] Tommy Thomas: So, what are you most excited about in life right now? [00:25:17] Alec Hill:  Grandchildren, of course. I've got three of them and they're just wonderful. I think I just turned 70 and when I first had the bone marrow transplant, I didn't know that I would live to 70 and now I'm thinking I could live to 80. The whole journey of full-body radiation chemo has taken some years off my life. So, there's this sense of living in a cycle of appreciation and joy and just being relatively healthy. That's also a real joy. I had two new hips put in a couple of years ago because the full-body radiation killed off some of the blood flow to the head of the joint, and I'm going to have more of those coming up. But I think the awe of my wife, having been married for 45 years, and grandkids.  I'd say little kids just light up. Every they're like little energy buckets. They're like batteries. And so even though I come back with a sore back and bent knees and all that stuff, it's just wonderful. So I think that's what I'm most excited about. And I think the other part on the professional side is I'm not retired. I'm working 30 hours plus a week. And one of the big changes in my life, Tommy, has been from having one activity, which is whether it's being a dean or regional director for world relief or doing InterVarsity to having this portfolio of activities. And so I've got a lot of buckets. I have multiple bosses. I teach at Regent College in Canada. I write for Tammy Heim.  There were boards in the past, and so the challenge now is, how do you take all of these activities and make them flow so that they work? And I will say this, everything I do is pretty much, it's fun, wonderful, mission-driven stuff. But what I do miss is doing a mission together with a team. And I think that's the one thing about leading is that, you see a goal, you're doing a mission and you're doing it with a group of people you love. That is really a special time. But that time has passed for me. I've accepted that, but that's probably the one thing I do miss.  [00:27:23] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anyone's ever given you? [00:27:25] Alec Hill: I thought about this one. I think that freedom comes through surrender. And I think that this is counterintuitive, but that when we become slaves of Christ, we truly find our freedom because he's a good master. And for someone like me who likes to maintain control, it's a very hard lesson to learn. But when I do it well, there is such lightness because I'm not carrying the world. I'm not a false Messiah carrying around all the problems of the world and being responsible for them. I'm actually surrendering to the true Messiah who carries the world on his shoulders and I'm under his wings, and therefore I'm in the right flow, doing the right things, but I'm not catching all the headwinds like he does. All the crap, all the hell that he caught through the, through his who he was. And that is a really good place to be. [00:28:25] Tommy Thomas: If you were a judge or I guess one of the wealthy people on the Shark Tank and nonprofit people came to you with their ideas.  What have you got to know before you invest? [00:28:35] Alec Hill:  I would ask them if they have a coherent strategic plan.  I would ask them to describe their last executive director transition.  I would ask them do they do an annual evaluation of the executive director regularly, consistently?  I would ask them, are all your trustees giving? And describe how you handled your latest crisis. What was the crisis and how'd you handle it? Now hopefully they'd be honest and tell me, but, if they came up with a sense that they weren't doing these things well, they were sloppy. We did a review a couple of years ago, the strategic plan. Yeah. We've got five or six ideas on a sheet of paper. I'm not going to invest in that nonprofit. So I think there are basic principles of I would, I'd also ask, do you regularly survey your employees? And what do you do with that feedback? So what kind of feedback loops do you have? How are you improving yourself as an organization, as a ministry, as a board? And if they don't, if they look at you blankly, then you just go, so I'd ask some governance questions as well. But you're trying to get to culture and what they're really like in their default manner. [00:29:45] Tommy Thomas: If you were creating a dashboard that at a glance would give you some indication of the health of a nonprofit what would some of the gauges be? [00:29:53] Alec Hill: This is a great question. I think the first thing is, are there metrics tied to their strategic plan? And it sounds like a really simple thing, but it's amazing how many metrics are in these dashboards that aren't directly tied to the strategic plan goals. So that's a real basic one. My advice is if you have a board that's used a certain dashboard for years, but you have a new strategic plan, you're going to have to rewrite your dashboard. And that people, sometimes they don't, they disconnect the two. I think I would want to know is do you have three-plus months of reserves and finances? I think that's a big one, and I would want to try now, once you get over six months, it gets a little way too much. But if you're under three months in your reserves, there's instability and a scarcity mentality that can set in that's unhealthy. I want to look at debt, if there's a line of credit. I think that, obviously the finances, but those are a couple of particular things. And then I mentioned this in your earlier question, but I think the employee satisfaction survey, I, as a board member, I'd really want to look to see that there's an annual regular and I want to see what, how the employees are feeling about the organization. Boards can be too connected with the organization, but they can also be disconnected. And I think the evaluation of the executive director and employee satisfaction surveys give you a sense of the health of it. I think it should be on the President, the Executive Director's plate to be looking at that employee satisfaction survey and making changes and improving year by year.  +++++++++++++++++++ [00:31:23] Tommy Thomas: I'm grateful to Alec Hill for being our guest today. His candor and transparency are always encouraging to me. As he mentioned in the podcast, Alec is a frequent contributor to the Christian Leadership Alliance Blog. He's also a published author of two books. Living in Bonus Time: Surviving Cancer, Finding New Purpose and Just Business: Christian Ethics for the Marketplace. We have several links to Alec's writing in the show notes.  Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast.   If there are topics you'd like for me to explore my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.   Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing.   Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.  If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Living in Bonus Time: Surviving Cancer, Finding New Purpose Just Business: Christian Ethics for the Marketplace InterVarsity Press - Alec Hill The Huffington Post - Alec Hill   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile      

[00:00:00] Caryn Ryan: The Chairman walks up to a fence.  They're tough, but they're relational, right? They're goal driven, but they're people driven. They stick to a vision of what they have for the organization and for the Board. They tend to be performance oriented. If you have Board Chairs who don't understand the value that the board is supposed to bring it's hard for them to be performance oriented. But the best Board Chairs really understand deeply what the value this board is bringing to this organization. And therefore, because they understand that they're able to act in that way. ​++++++++++++++++ [00:00:39] Tommy Thomas: In this episode, we're going to conclude the conversation that was started with Caryn Ryan, back in Episode 84. In that conversation, Caryn shared her leadership journey from BP/Amoco to the CFO for World Vision International to her current role as Founder and Managing Member of Missionwell.  In this episode, Caryn will be sharing lessons on nonprofit board governance that she's learned over the years.  [00:01:15] Tommy Thomas: Let's change over to board service and board governance for a few minutes. Your friend John Reynolds, who himself is a pretty steeped in this area, he said, if I ever got a chance to talk to you, that we for sure needed to talk about the work you've done and the  Balanced Scorecard for Boards. Take us into that. I really hadn't thought about that from a board perspective.  [00:01:36] Caryn Ryan: Yeah. That's great. I appreciated John's support in that area at the time. And then also Maggie Bailey, who you may know who was at Point Loma.  [00:01:44] Tommy Thomas: I do know Dr. Bailey.  [00:01:46] Caryn Ryan: She's been another good friend. And somebody who really helped form some of my thoughts on governance. We served on the Board of Open Doors together. So, in 2021 I read Dean Spitzer's book on Transformative Performance Metrics. And it made me start thinking about all the problems of metrics and how might it be possible to have more positive outcomes or avoiding the downsides that he was discussing. And I started thinking some of those downsides that he mentioned over and over through the book might be surmounted if we applied biblical principles and tried to attach metrics to our faith and that leaders that led from faith might therefore be able to get better outcomes. Let me give you a couple examples. When you're using metrics in an organization usually tangible and financial results are really at the top, and that doesn't motivate people a lot of the time. And so I began to think maybe if we had some people and relationships at the top, in other words, that sort of from this biblical base of loving people that might be more but motivating and it would certainly be better connected to our faith. And then getting overconfident in the measures that the measures become the goal. Humility, this is a really important faith-based value and way of life, and perseverance in the face of issues. Those kinds of biblical and ways of living faithfully might help surmount that. And the fact that a measurement isn't trusted. I was thinking of let your yes be a yes, this idea that people get very defensive regarding failures, I thought in a faithful community, confession is at the core of reconciliation. So, I started thinking about how all these shortcomings had a biblical answer to them. And I started thinking how could we start to put together an approach that was more biblical and then allowed people's faith to be at the heart of their metrics? And as time went on I started then thinking about, okay let's take the issue of goals. That's taking a step back from the problems of metrics, but metrics are meant to - in a sense, say how we're doing on the journey of goals. So, we have, for instance, a vision. You have a vision to get to the vision, you set big goals, and then when you set the big goals, you have metrics. There're BHAGs sometimes, or there are other types of goals. And I started just then thinking about goals. Smart Goals Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant to the mission and vision of the organization and Timebound And I know you've talked with John Pearson, and hearing good friends, you probably have heard him talk a lot about smart goals. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant to the mission and vision and Timebound. John uses smart goals a lot and that has impacted so many non-profits and Christian organizations for the good. It's added a lot of clarity and focus. I began to think about another lens, which is clear goals. Clear goals have come out in the last few years as another way of thinking about goals. And the CLEAR stands for Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable and Refinable. CLEAR Goals Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable and Refinable If you look in more detail at what those mean, they all come down to how is it that people are motivated and how is it that within a system of organization we set goals that are people sized and yet think about who they are, and it thinks about the people who the basic people are connected to as well. So I began to think about those clear goals and how people get motivated and start thinking more and more that there might be, again, that role for faith because that approach of the clear goals seemed like it tied a little bit better with the love of people. So let me give you a quick example here. Let's just see my vision. This is my vision. I'm going to use you a personal example, and this isn't true by the way, but it's just an example. My vision is to travel the world and have lots of adventures, and then I go to the doctor and the doctor says, I need to lose 50 pounds to get to a goal weight. That doctor's saying that you need to get to a goal weight, that's not motivating by itself to a lot of people. In fact, it might discourage some people or, and some people might take it to extremes, and it might compromise their muscle building and their bone density, etc, and so on. So it can have some unintended consequences. And it might be hard on my family if I stop cooking because I need to lose 50 pounds. But if my goal is to be physically fit enough to take a hike in the Swiss Alps in two years, that's motivating to me. And it might produce long-term change and it might engage my family too. So the system around me, it might have positive benefits for the system around me and it might create better health outcomes for my family too. So I started thinking that's the goal, it's to get the right motivations for people directly responsible for the goal. It's to attach the goal to something that's motivational for them. And then it's to ensure that the surrounding people and processes don't suffer any material negative consequences, that goal and in fact maybe even benefit from it. So then, that was some goal thinking that solved, finding good. And then I started thinking about balanced scorecards because balanced scorecards, really what those are is a way of expressing how you're accomplishing the sum of your goals. I began to think then about this idea of a KPI, key performance indicator that is saying that's a measure at a strategic level. So it's not a key success outcome, which is maybe something a little bit more tactical, but it's at the strategic level. And I started thinking about KPIs in particular and balanced scorecards. And how then could you take these processes, this or this idea of love for people and get that translated into some better performance metrics or better KPIs. I was working at the time with a Christian homeless organization. And I started talking with them about this as part of their strategy process, and I just noticed it resonated with their mindset. And we continued working on it with this organization. And it resulted in a scorecard initially for that organization,  which then turned out to be relatively easy to translate, concept wise, into a scorecard for a board. A KPI has both a measure and a target. Let me just give you a few examples. A KPI has both a measure and a target, and it's based on a balance set of perspectives. And so one example might be a board that wants to measure giving and getting, you've probably seen that as an issue, Tommy, and some of the boards that you work with, their concern is that the giving and getting the donations direct and indirect are not sufficient or not what the development department wants.  Some boards the chairman in collaboration with the CEO might say, this is a minimum gift. It's $10,000. If you want to be on our board, you're going to give $10,000. It's a minimum gift. Or another board might take the approach of saying, we want you to be in the top three of charities or causes that you give to now. One of those ways is more focused on people and aligning motivations and commitments than the other. And that's the difference at a board level and at an organization level that we're trying to capture. How do you make these things more motivational?  Another area for a board might be in the continuous improvement boards that have a really high percentage of directors talking about how much they love their board and are likely to be doing a good job. It could be that when it comes to your board self-assessment, if your measure is going to be based on your board self-assessment, maybe within that board self-assessment, you want to have a measure and pull that up to the KPI level about what is your board of director's net promoter score? In other words, how many people on your board are going out and talking about that board positively and inviting them to come into the board? Maybe 80% of the board, at least, should be going out and doing that. And if they are, then that's a great metric for a board self-assessment. It's a very results-oriented self-assessment. You've got a great board if everybody's out there talking about what a wonderful board you have. And it's also doing great things, by the way, for your recruitment metric as well.  [00:10:27] Tommy Thomas: That question I hadn't heard.  This is fascinating.  [00:10:33] Caryn Ryan: So, whether it's for boards or leaders, a nonprofit who wants to do this for a ministry has to tweak the methodologies that are used in the for-profit sector. But I think if they do it, they're going to get this a board or the leaders of organizations, they're going to just get a huge payback. They're just going to find that it's transformational in terms of the quality of time that they spend working on their metrics, making sure their personal motivations don't have unintended consequences and that they demonstrate the love for people. So, this is not something that I think a lot of people are thinking about, Tommy, and I can see working on this more as my role. So, mission will become less operational, but there's something in here that there's a word here that needs to be spread a little bit and different ways of thinking that we as Christians can offer to the rest of the world. ++++++++++++++++   [00:11:26] Tommy Thomas: A lot of people, most of us, would say that we've learned a lot in life through failure. In fact, maybe a lot of our stuff is learned through mistakes. If that's the truth, why are most of us so afraid to make a mistake?    [00:11:40] Caryn Ryan: I really think that it goes back to those two root causes that I was talking about before for leadership. Self-esteem and a desire for power or money or greed.  And if you have really low self-esteem, then I think you don't want to be judged. And because you don't want to be judged, then you don't take risks. And if you don't take risks, there's no reward. And then because there's no rewards, that goes and reinforces your low self-esteem. So it's this whole negative cycle of activities that just result in you not taking risks. But I would say too that if it's somebody who's power hungry, what you're going to see there is maybe not mistakes. It's more sins or heirs, of omission and commission really, that are just more, they're selfish, right? And so they're mistakes. They're either mistakes, in this life or in the next life. If you want to improve people's risk taking, you need to permit mistakes. And we need to also work on the root causes there.  We need to have systems and processes that make it safe, that don't trigger negative self-esteem, that make it okay for people to engage in risk taking, that set up rewards for risk taking. It's a kind of a whole system that we have to address if you want to fix this. But I think from a board perspective, and I know you're coming from that some of the time, there's also an issue of just needing to screen people who are willing to step past any kind of inner hesitations that they might have about, looking silly in front of their peers, for instance and who will just come out and say, it looks this way to me. And from a board perspective that seldom is going to be a mistake is going to generate a great conversation and improve outcomes for a board.  [00:13:43] Tommy Thomas: I want to go to financial accountability for a minute.  Because you live three or 400 miles south of the largest bank failure in recent days, the Silicon Valley Bank. And then you and I are both old enough to remember the Enron scandal. And in both of those situations, I think most people say the board is culpable. I guess the jury's still out on the bank but my hunch is that they'll find some culpability there. Take it. And they're not nonprofit organizations, but boards have responsibilities. How do you counsel your clients to have more candid conversations about financial accountability? [00:14:21] Caryn Ryan: That's such a great question, Tommy. I will say too, just for starters, that it's quite rare, I think for board members to have whatever it takes to come out and ask these top questions. The best of boards do, but the middle of the pack and the worst really don't. Now you start thinking then about what is in the best of boards that makes them allow conflict and allow tough questions to come out. And I think there's a variety of answers. But first, let me just say this. I want to point out an interesting statistic here because if you look at candidate or GuideStar, this is a rating entity for nonprofits. And that includes Christian nonprofits. They provide some statistics that could be of interest here to try to think through - who are the best of the best. It's not completely pertinent, but in their world, which is thousands and thousands of charities that they rank, only 5% get a ranking of gold, silver, or platinum status. And of those, it's a very limited percentage, maybe 15%, that get the platinum. So when you multiply that backwards, then it says that only about 1.5% of all the charities that get ranked get a platinum candid certification. Now, this is mainly just looking at financial results and transparencies, but I think it does show that being the top nonprofit, it's pretty rarefied world. It's that up in the stratosphere there is a top nonprofit or a top ministry. So then we code your question then about I think having a board that can ask the tough questions is a precursor to that, to being a top performing nonprofit. And so having a really great board. It is a risky proposition when a nonprofit CEO recruits only his/her friends or allies to the Board. There are barriers that we can see. I'm sure you've seen these often too, but it's not unusual for a CEO to recruit his or her friends or allies to the board. And that's never a good idea because it discourages a lot of times that friend from having an honest conversation about the nonprofit or something that's really important to their friend. And also on boards, it's not unusual to have a whole bunch of conflicts of interest. It just isn't dealt with or even surfaced by the board members. So when you have that, then you have the sometimes people aren't going to ask tough questions because they have a conflict of interest.  Another factor is that there's capability gaps. There are people who aren't able to read basic financial statements or financial reports. And I think financials, I'm coming at this from a financial perspective perhaps, but financials embody the impact of boards and their decisions, and their actions related to strategy. A board takes a decision. The decision unfolds as actions. The actions are translated into financial results. And so that's how a board gets to see how did I do with the strategic decisions that I made? But interestingly, a lot of times sports can't even read their financial statements. There's a lot of financial literacy questions there. So how can you ask tough questions if you can't read the financial statements or financial reports and understand them? And sometimes there are issues with what's delivered to boards too, in terms of information, but sometimes it's just a basic lack of understanding. I think too, there's also a fundamental issue that sometimes with boards, they don't get enough board development or board training and they really just don't understand their key role when it comes to accountability. And so, they don't understand that it's their job to ask the tough questions. These are a few things, but I think you put them all together, Tommy. And isn't it a wonder at all that any charities have boards that do ask the tough questions and that are excellent? There are a lot of pieces that all have to come together to make that happen. +++++++++++++++++   [00:18:11] Tommy Thomas: At the crux of any board is the Board Chair. Give me words and phrases that would describe the best chair you've ever seen or served under.  [00:18:20] Caryn Ryan: Okay. I would say some of the things that I've seen the chairman do… They're tough, but they're relational, right? They're goal driven, but they're people driven. They stick to a vision of what they have for the organization and for the board. They tend to be performance oriented. I think if you have board chairs who don't understand the value that the board is supposed to bring it's hard for them to be performance oriented. The best board chairs really understand deeply what the value this board is bringing to this organization. And therefore, because they understand that they're able to act in that way. So I see those are some of the characteristics that differentiate a great board leader from a less than great board leader. [00:19:11] Tommy Thomas: Do you think every board needs a glass half empty person?  [00:19:16] Caryn Ryan: Does the board need that kind of a person? No. I guess it depends on how you define that, Tommy. So, for me if you mean by that, that there's a person who can see that they're on the side of half empty, that there's upsides and downsides, right? Then maybe. But in general, I think when a board comes together, they need to be so enthusiastic, so passionate about the mission and vision. So, the ability to look at an opportunity and say, no our glass is not half empty. I know where we want to go as a board, and we're going to fill this glass, right? They're going to say, we're going to absolutely fill this glass. We're going to pivot and do what we have to do because maybe there are some circumstances out there that are making some people think the glass is half empty, but we're going to pivot. We're going to figure out what we need to do. Always moving down the field toward the goalpost, toward the vision for the organization. So I think if people can try to look at environments and circumstances and say, how do we get the most from these?  How do we use this? Change this, maybe this negative circumstance. How do we use this negative environment? How do we use this risky situation? How do we just use this to help us down the goalpost? Or if we just absolutely can't find a way, how do we dodge it for now so we can come back and get back on track later? Is there a better way for a board member to function? [00:20:39] Tommy Thomas:   Talk a little bit about the CEO Evaluation and the Board.  You've seen a lot of boards. What's some best practices you see there?  [00:20:48] Caryn Ryan: How about for starters doing it? That to me is critical and mostly what I've seen over the years are annual assessments. When it's done. What I see is annual assessments sometimes every two years. When I've helped boards, I sit on boards that I've helped. What I've done is I've stolen shamelessly from other organizations to develop an assessment. And by the way, I don't think you need to be overly concerned with whether a professional developed this assessment. Most board members know this is what's important for us and for the CEO. Just write those questions out and, go or go steal them from somebody and tweak them a bit to make them fit your circumstances. I've noticed other nonprofits are very generous in sharing that way. They're happy to say, this is my evaluation tool. But it's important too, to just do it and to remember too, it's not the tool, it's the conversation around it.  You're actually using that tool because you want to improve. If it's a Board evaluation, you want to improve the Board. If it's a CEO evaluation, you want to give it to the CEO to develop the CEO. And sometimes to make a tough decision on retention. But a lot of times it's for the development and the good of the CEO and the organization. So don't focus on the what, focus on the how, when it comes to these evaluations, and keep in mind what the goal is, right? To encourage and to support and to develop your CEO. [00:22:13] Tommy Thomas: I talked to Jerry White, The Board Chair for The Navigators International, yesterday.  And Jerry's comment was that whatever comes out in the evaluation shouldn't be a surprise.  [00:22:22] Caryn Ryan: That's quite true because if it does turn out to be a surprise, Jerry is absolutely correct. You've had a trust breakdown. The results of the Board's evaluation of the CEO should not be a surprise to the CEO.  If that happens you have a breakdown in trust and communications. When you have that big of a communications breakdown, there's a trust dynamic at work there. And that has to be treated as a separate issue and a precursor to really doing CEO evaluations. You first have to address that trust issue, what is causing the trust issue?  And you have to get that out of the way before you can then have reasonably productive conversations around an assessment.  That's such a common dynamic, Tommy. [00:22:56] Tommy Thomas: Jerry said that, I'm probably paraphrasing, but something to the effect of the evaluation should really be going on overtime and not just every 12 months or whatever.  [00:23:06] Caryn Ryan: He's absolutely right. So there should be informal feedback occurring. Some of the better boards, I've seen the chairman meeting monthly with the CEO, right? They have lunch, an informal kind of lunch. And they're having a very frank and relational though dialogue during the month about, what's going, what's going wrong. It's a chance and opportunity for linkages and feedback to the board and back. And so that in and of itself is building trust and leading to the ability for the board to have a positive session when it comes to the performance management. But I'll say this, even when that's occurring at which it does in the best board, there are going to be, because the CEO Evaluation is the sum of all, typically of all the board members. It's not always the case. Sometimes the chairman will do it, or they'll select a few people to do it, but a lot of times it's the whole board. There's almost a benefit to seeing that total perspective because maybe there's an aspect of it that's a surprise. The overall flow is in accord with what the chairman and CEO have been talking about and having dialogue on through the year. But there's a couple of points that generally come out that make that wrap up in the annual evaluation valuable. There's something about the faith life of the CEO that hasn't been addressed and it's coming out and there's a way to have a conversation in a different kind of pulling up. Over the past year and maybe even looking forward a little bit into the challenges, it's just a way of pulling up above the fray and looking with a little bit more distance at the year that can generate a couple of new revelations. But I totally agree with Jerry. There shouldn't really be a lot of surprises on that because there should be this ongoing dialogue. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:24:44] Tommy Thomas: I want to ask you one question, then I'll close. My next to the last question has to do with succession planning and the board. At what point should that begin to occur? And how does the board address that without the CEO thinking? I'm a short termer.  [00:25:03] Caryn Ryan: Okay. Yeah, that's great.  I'm dealing with that right now at one of my one of the boards that I sit on. And I've just dealt with that last year as well. And it works both ways if it works all, all different ways. So let me just talk about one where the CEO does get the feeling. If you have this conversation, they're a short termer. I want to just say first of all, that can sometimes go back to the trust issue again, right? When there's a lack of trust between the board and the CEO then, and you bring up the question of succession planning, the first thing that goes of course into the CEO's mind is, oh, I'm getting fired.  I'm a short termer here.  So that has to again, be addressed, the trust issue before you can have productive conversations around succession planning. But even longer term issues are going to take some time to get resolved. There's something you can always do on the succession plan that's very short term and that every single board must have in place. And that is you need a succession plan in case of an emergency. If your CEO becomes ill, is hit by a bus, whatever, right? You need an emergency succession plan that is an interim structure or very well thought through way that you'll manage in the absence of the CEO.  And usually, it's not going to bring out the same negative feeling for the CEO.  On the part of the CEO because they understand that, oh yeah, if I'm not there, we need to have some interim structure. And so, they'll begin helping the Board and thinking through, look, okay, if something happens to me, let's make this person on our staff, the interim, or let's pull this Board Member out and see if they'll be the interim. Or they'll start to engage in the ideas for how that could work in an interim structure. And as long as you can get that interim structure put in place and everybody's in agreement that it's workable, that then gives a chance during the interim structure for the Board to go out and begin doing a search to find a replacement candidate. Regarding succession planning for a Founder – She/he just might not be willing to step aside. They might have created a whole lack of number twos in the organization who can step in, even in an emergency. It just may not be anybody. So that's a different situation where the board needs to probably, in addition to working on trust, which can be very difficult with the founder. You might be off the board if you start having those kinds of conversations. But what you can do as a board is do your research. How you would do a search. You can get your research done on executive search firms who could step in and help you. You can just keep in mind, it takes and Tommy, you're the one who should be telling your podcast listeners this, but it's a long process to do a search. You've got to set up a search committee. You have to figure out how you're going to recruit, the person. You've got to have an approach. You have to execute it, you have to review the candidates. It's just really time consuming. You at least have to think through all of these, how that's a minimum thing, even if it's a founder situation. So I'd say two things. Number one, for sure, have an interim emergency succession plan, no questions asked. That's an absolute minimum mandate for every board. And number two, if you're on a founder board, you have to do some special extra work along the side with networking, quiet networking, just to figure out the process and figure out how you would do, how would you do that if something did happen to your founder, if your founder's not willing to participate or help with that.  Does that make sense?  [00:28:32] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. The founder conversation is probably a three or four podcast discussion that I haven't had yet. Maybe I'll have you back with two or three other panelists and we'll talk about founders because I did some research three or four years ago on that, and it's an easier said than done proposition. [00:28:49] Caryn Ryan: Yes, I totally agree, and I'd love to hear the wisdom of some other panelists on this one too, because we all encounter these founder situations.  [00:28:58] Tommy Thomas: So, let's go to my last question.  Somebody comes to you next week, they want to have breakfast or lunch, and somebody has asked them to serve on the Board of a nonprofit, and they're coming to you saying, Caryn, what should I be thinking about? [00:29:13] Caryn Ryan: I'd say, if they ask that question, they're on track to be a good board member first of all. Because sometimes people will jump into these situations without asking that very question. But what I would give somebody who's thinking about joining a board the advice is number one,  For a nonprofit Board Member - Does the mission of the organization excite my passion? Am I passionate about it? I think if you're not passionate about what the organization is doing, it's just not going to work. It's just not going to interest you inherently. So, you have to be able to see this as a way to realize or support your passion. Number two I would talk about - I would think about conflicts of interest. I was recently counseling the Executive Director of an organization who'd been asked to serve on a board where there were some competitive aspects to her organization. So we talked that through. And she in effect decided, no, there's too many conflicts of interest here for me to take that board position. Number three might be do you have the time? Okay. So, there's a real issue. You need to dig in and understand how much time is it going to take. Do you have to serve on committees? How much time do the committees take? How many, how frequently are the board meetings? Is there a retreat every year that you have to go to? So you really need to add up the time and make sure that you're able to make that commitment. I'd say those are three of the big things that I see with people. And a lot of times I'll start doing positive coaching to people too, in terms of, also, why don't you ask yourself, what development will I personally get by sitting on the Board? What will it do for me and my professional development or my development as a person and a human being? And sometimes that can make the difference. They can say, I really don't have the time to do this, but I need to do this because I really believe it's going to focus and sharpen at home this strategic skill set that I need to be successful in something else that I'm doing in life. And so, they'll do it and they'll be really glad, because they'll get that development. Just let's think about that lens too.  [00:31:05] Tommy Thomas: That's interesting.  A good friend, Joe Arms, who used to be the Chairman of the Baylor Board is the CEO of a large private sector company.  He said he makes that a part of the management training program for his employees that he encourages board participation in the nonprofit sector in Dallas as part of their grooming. [00:31:27] Caryn Ryan: I can see that you get a lot of personal development when you're a part of a board and it's where you're really learning that what you learn about governance is not so distinct from what you need to be a top senior executive in a corporation. There are just a lot of parallels there. So I can really see why he'd say that.  So he makes a very good observation. [00:31:48] Tommy Thomas:  Caryn, thank you. This has been a great conversation. I just believe our listeners have picked up some things that probably hadn't been covered in other board conversations, so thank you for taking this time with me. I really appreciate it.  [00:32:03] Caryn Ryan: Absolutely.  Thank you, Tommy. I'm so glad to have reconnected with you and been able to remember some of my fond memories with some of the people who are in your network as we've talked.  [00:32:14] Tommy Thomas:  Life has been good to me over the years, and the two men you mentioned, Nick Isbister and Rob Stevenson - both of those guys they put a lot of time into this project, and I'm grateful for their part in my life.  [00:32:26] Caryn Ryan: I'm grateful too and I can add you to my circle of gratitude now.  [00:32:30] Tommy Thomas: Our guest next week will be Alec Hill The President Emeritus of InterVarsity Christian fellowship. You may remember Alec from Episodes 18 and 19, where he and Rudy Hernandez, a former board chair at InterVarsity discuss the working relationship between the CEO and the Board Chair in a nonprofit organization.  Alec is also a prolific writer. He's a regular contributor to postings on the Christian Leadership Alliance website. One of his recent posts was titled Finding Gold in Manure. In that article Alec shares lessons that he's learned for some of the hard times in his life. And in our conversation we'll dig into some of those lessons.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas 2021 Distinguished Alumni Recipient Caryn Ryan, ‘79 Missionwell Website Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success by Dean Spitzer   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Caryn Ryan's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: This week, we're continuing the conversation that we began last week with Paul Mauer, the president of Montreat College. If you missed that episode, we've talked about what one writer has referred to as the “Miracle at Montreat”. Today Paul is sharing lessons that he's learned about nonprofit board governance over the years.  Let's change over a little bit to the board aspect of being a president. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make between, say, reporting to the CEO as a cabinet member and then as the President reporting to the board? [00:00:40] Paul Maurer: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm a bit of a governance nerd. I really think about and study governance. I did that in my doctoral work. I do it as a college president in nonprofit governance.  Your board policy manual really matters. It matters because your board needs clarity. The president needs clarity. What is the role of the board? What is the role of the president? What's the role of the relationship and what's the role of everyone else on campus in relationship to the board? And so, in the world of board governance, there are working boards and there are policy boards. Startups tend to have working boards, like true startups, like really small organizations, more established organizations. If they haven't transitioned to a policy board, they probably ought to consider doing so. Because you don't really want a board involved in the operations of an organization. I'm deeply grateful that my board gave me the lead role in board development, meaning recruitment of new board members, training of board members, and the board policy manual. And we have a great board today, and they really understand that the board should not be involved in operations. That's the CEO's job but one should be sure that they're being fiduciaries, that they're making sure there's a strategic plan that's being carried out, their success along the way, and that they manage or evaluate. They don't manage, they evaluate the presidents. They hire and fire the president, the CEO. I do think that my argument would be that it's more important for a President to be a CEO than a President. The President is, as I think of a bit of an old model for college leadership, it's rooted in what I think is not a very useful model of shared governance. I think the CEO is a better model, but you also need a CEO who's sensitive to campus dynamics and the idea that consensus really matters. And a consensus building CEO I think is the best model, but I think that the CEO also needs to be the CUO - the Chief Urgency Officer, because things are changing so fast.  And if the CEO is not leading change with a great sense of urgency, then I think the institution puts itself at some measure of risk. [00:03:21] Tommy Thomas: You've served on other boards, and you've reported to at least two, give me some attributes of a great Board Chair.  [00:03:29] Paul Maurer: I think the central role of a Board Chair is to manage the board. It's not principally to be a person of wealth or to be connected to persons of wealth. I don't think that's the right model for a Board Chair of a college. I think the right model is someone who understands nonprofit governance and manages the board meeting to meeting because the board ultimately is the boss of the President - CEO, only during those board meetings. So the board chair needs to constantly instill clarity in the board to encourage them and steer them away from being involved in operations from directing the presidents, and to maintaining the role of being an overseer that the CEO reports to three times a year or however many times a year that board meets. The best chairs I've worked with really understand governance and really do well in managing the board's expectations of what that governance entails.  [00:04:41] Tommy Thomas: How does a good Board Chair draw out the silent board member?  [00:04:47] Paul Maurer:  In our board meetings, we have blocks of time for plenary sessions for the big picture items. And there's always time in there for dialogue and for feedback. And there are times when we build into our board meetings. When I give my board report, I give a little bit of a board update, a little bit of a report, and then I just open the floor to questions. And so there's just this open dialogue that I have with my board during the president's report at the beginning of the day and then the middle of the day during plenary sessions. If I'm informing or bringing an action item to the board as a whole, we are sure to build in time for dialogue, deliberation, questions, understanding, and in between board meetings, I'm sending information on kind of the latest update on what's happening in my world. So, they're getting articles on a regular, semi-regular basis that if they're able to take time to read them helps keep them abreast of the most pressing issues that I'm facing on a regular basis.  [00:06:04] Tommy Thomas: So how often do you and your Board Chair, do y'all have regularly scheduled times or is it as needed?  How do y'all relate to each other?  [00:06:12] Paul Maurer: I'm aware that friendship is a tricky element in these things. I happen to have a very deep and strong friendship with my board chair, which preceded him coming on the board and he became a board member. And now as chair and I've changed my mind on this, Tommy, because there was a time earlier on when I thought that those were mutually exclusive and now, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it can work very healthfully. And now I actually try to cultivate friendships with my board members in a way that I didn't early on in my first presidency, certainly not early on at Montreat. And so I think that dynamic when healthy is a really powerful part of making it work well. Any model can be abused. Any model can go awry. And I've seen that and I've heard about it an awful lot. I've experienced it. But I've also experienced the flip side of that, where a really meaningful friendship can also be the basis of a really healthy CEO-Board Chair relationship.  [00:07:34] Tommy Thomas: Can you think back as to, you mentioned early on at Montreat you hadn't gotten there yet.  What changed?  [00:07:43] Paul Maurer: In the relationship with my board chair?  [00:07:46] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, how did you make that transition from thinking it wasn't healthy to realizing that it could be healthy?  [00:07:52] Paul Maurer: I guess experiencing it along the way, initially without intending it to be that, and I went, this actually works. And so, when my current chair, when I began discussions with him about, because he had led a major healthcare nonprofit and grown it from a $25 million budget to $125 million budget. He had led a nonprofit.  He had worked in that sector for all of his career in healthcare, not in education. And so, I knew that I wanted him to be my next board chair when that time came. And so it was really then that I began to think in this kind of new model that maybe there's a way for and as I look back, I've actually had these like really healthy relationships with my past two board chairs here at Montreat. And gosh, what a better way to do it, and it really is possible. It eventually dawned on me that I could intentionally pursue that.  [00:09:01] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a term limit for your board chair?  [00:09:04] Paul Maurer: Five years, but it's year to year, up to five years.  [00:09:09] Tommy Thomas: And what about your board members? [00:09:10] Paul Maurer:  Nine years, the terms are three years renewable, two times for a nine year max with a one year minimum required off before renomination. One of the changes we made here was that every three-year term we do the board does self-evaluations for those that term and peer evaluations for those that come to term. There's an honest, self-reflective, peer reviewed process that goes through a committee on trusteeship every year for those at a term to ask the question, is this going well? Is this a time to continue on or a time to step off? And so it's not a nine, it's not a nine year. Every three years we talk about it. [00:10:08] Tommy Thomas:  Is that fairly common in the nonprofit sector from your experience?  [00:10:12] Paul Maurer: The board policy manual that we use was the work of Bob Andringa who was the CEO of the Council for Christian Colleges Universities some years ago. And Bob developed the BPM (Board Policy Manual) that we use. And as I understand it, there are 60 or 70 or 80, I think mostly CCCU schools that have adopted some version of Bob's work. And I just think it's so well-crafted and we of course made it ours with Bob's permission. And it's just a really, it's a really well done, thoughtful way to do governance. ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:10:53] Tommy Thomas: A lot of people that I talk with, there's a move toward lowering the mean age of the board and also increasing diversity. What kind of experience have y'all had at Montreat on those issues? [00:11:03] Paul Maurer:  We're intentionally trying to increase diversity. We've not found that to be an easy pathway, but we are committed to it. And on age I would just gently push back on the median age lowering. I'm very much of the Aristotelian camp that young people have less wisdom. And part of what you want for board members is wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience, and experience comes with age and the hard knocks of life. And just the journey of life with gray hair and getting beat up occasionally. And I want younger people on the board, but that's more, that's less common. They're actually very hard to get on the board because they're less really qualified candidates in my view, and they're uber busy with career and family. So the young members I have, the 30 somethings I have on my board, I have two of them. They're like up to their eyeballs, four or five kids each, they're CEOs or leaders in their own rights and rising in the ranks. And these people have large portfolios and enormous demands on their time. Then my 70- and 80-year-olds, and even I have a 91-year-old board member who I recruited at the age of 87. And he said to me, he said, Paul, what if I die? And I said, Bill what if I die? We're all going to die. You've got a lot of gas left in your tank. You've got an enormous amount of wisdom. And you may have others who think that you're too old to be a board member. I don't think that at all. And if there comes a day when your health has slipped, your metro capacities have slipped, we'll have that conversation and we'll have it openly and honestly. Honestly, the seventies, eighties, and 90-year-old trustees I have are really easily among my best trustees.  They're phenomenal. [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to this quote. You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant, someone who will force people to think a little differently. That's what a good board does. [00:13:39] Paul Maurer: I think I would probably not gravitate toward the word irritant, and I would say I, I'd probably substitute something a little softer than that, that you want to be objective and you want to be able to deal with the hard issues. And frankly, the CEO ought to be leading the way on that, not a board member. I think it's fine for a board member to raise difficult or uncomfortable matters, and I certainly have board members who do that, and I think that's fine and it's healthy, but I think that can come by from different means, and it can come without it being quote unquote, maybe I'm just hung up on the word irritant. I think you can have really robust, difficult, honest, truthful conversations without it being irritating.  [00:14:40] Tommy Thomas: Okay. Talk about your philosophy or your use of the executive committee?  [00:14:48] Paul Maurer: I think it's vital and extremely valuable in a healthy board situation, and I'm qualifying a lot of my comments with a healthy board because I've worked for both healthy and unhealthy boards. I happen to be working for a very healthy board in my time here at Montreat. And so the executive committee functionally is a decision that needs to be made quickly between board meetings and the CEO either doesn't have the authority or just wisely wants the board to help own that decision and goes to the executive committee in between board meetings for a fast decision. Early in my time here, I used that executive committee with more frequency than I do now. But I don't have the number of fires now that I had back in 14, 15, 16, 17. And so I still use the executive committee, but it's less frequent and the larger board has fully embraced the executive committee in that way. [00:16:01] Tommy Thomas: How often do you use the executive session?  [00:16:04] Paul Maurer: Every board meeting, we have two executive sessions, one with the president and one without the president. Actually in inverse order - the first without the president. And then I'm brought back in for executive session with the president and where I'm told what was discussed in session without the president fully briefed and then engaging in a conversation where it's just me and the board in whatever they want to talk about freely, they don't feel free to talk about necessarily with a cabinet in the room. +++++++++++++++++++++   [00:16:37] Tommy Thomas: We mentioned strategic planning a few minutes ago. Does your board, are they involved in that, or do you and your staff bring that to the board?  [00:16:44] Paul Maurer: The latter in our board policy manual, the board's role is to approve a strategic plan recommended by the president and to receive updates and make sure that the CEO is making progress on the strategic plan. And so I give reports on the strategic plan, but the board is not involved in the creation of the strategic plan.  [00:17:07] Tommy Thomas: How does the CEO evaluation take place at Montreat? [00:17:11] Paul Maurer: So I submit a set of goals to the board on an annual basis that are metrics tied to the strategic plan, and they're evaluated at the end of the year.  And we, in our executive session, have a conversation about my delivery toward those goals.  [00:17:32] Tommy Thomas: Is that on an annual basis?  [00:17:35] Paul Maurer: It is in our policy manual. It is an annual activity.  [00:17:39] Tommy Thomas: How have you and your board addressed board turnover? In terms of maybe involuntary or voluntary?  I guess people decide they don't have time. They don't enjoy it. How are y'all doing with that?  [00:17:53] Paul Maurer: We've grown our board over the years, but we've certainly had people who, I had two resignations in this last run up to my board meeting last week. And they were just personal situations that they felt like they just needed to focus on some personal matters that they didn't feel like they could do justice to their service on the board. And we regretfully accepted their resignations. But in those cases, it had nothing to do with the college or the board or it was purely personal. That's mostly what we've experienced over these years. Most of our trustees go to term and we have them term out after nine years. We celebrate them and thank them. We've grown our board from our bylaws. Say that we can have between 12 and 36. It's a very wide range. When I first got here, we were in that 12 to 15 range for a number of years. Maybe ironically, maybe not. Ironically, during covid we had just a tremendous breakthrough in people saying yes to joining the board. I do a lot of board cultivation with board members who are bringing prospective trustee names to the table. We have a very robust list of prospective trustees at all times. Somewhere between 10 and 15 on our prospect list. And some go fast, some go slow, some never materialize. We're about 20 board members today.  Our target is to get in somewhere between 25 and 28. [00:19:31] Tommy Thomas: What kind of strategy do you use to keep that list at 15 to 20?  [00:19:36] Paul Maurer: Probably closer to 10 to 15. Yeah. And that's really the work of the committee on trusteeship to surface names. We also have, as we recruit new board members in, they bring fresh names to that list. So we're constantly messaging like that. That's a document. That's a living, breathing document. And some people stay on the A-list, some move to the B, some move to, we ask and they said no. We've got six or eight tabs on that spreadsheet, and it's constantly a living, breathing kind of document. [00:20:15] Tommy Thomas: This might be a mundane question, but I hear it asked a lot. Do you have a board meeting evaluation fairly regularly, or how do y'all approach that? [00:20:25] Paul Maurer:   Every board meeting, as soon as the board meeting is over, they get a email in their inbox asking them to fill out an evaluation of the board meeting. They've just finished. We give just a small number of days to do that so it's fresh in their minds. And then the Committee on Trusteeship takes that feedback which is both on a Likert scale as well as open comments available to, for them to make. And then that is discussed at the next committee on trusteeship meeting. And we're always trying to get better and refine and bring some changes to how the board meetings are conducted. And those surveys have served a very valuable role in that way.  [00:21:09] Tommy Thomas: What did you learn through Covid that you'll take forward? That maybe you didn't do before Covid in terms of board relationships and board governance? [00:21:19] Paul Maurer:   One of the observations I made during Covid was man, we're in this together. And my board chair is a public health expert, as I mentioned before and when Covid hit I remember calling him in early April and I said I don't have a clue how we're going to reopen. Can you help us? And he said I'd love to help you. And I said I've developed a friendship with the other four-year residential college presidents here in Western North Carolina. There are four privates and then a couple of major publics. Would you be willing to help them too? And he said, absolutely I would. That group of six presidents plus my board chair met on a zoom call at noon every Wednesday for a year and a half to figure out how to open residential both years of covid. And that was a powerful experience of teamwork and collaboration and friendship and setting aside the inevitable competition that exists between these institutions and saying, there's a bigger picture here, and I think the benefit of that was very great for all of us. The second thing I'd point to is that the level of fear that I observed during covid was something I'd never seen before, how widespread, how deep it was. And so the word courage became a central concept that whatever we did, we needed to really lean into the courage of critical thinking and what's best for the institution, what's best for the students and the staff here. And there was no one size fits all in Covid in vastly different circumstances in different parts of the country. Vastly different realities of the impact of covid with different age groups and so we had to make decisions for 18- to 22-year-olds in our campus and our employees. That's how we had to make decisions. And you can't possibly have state mandates or county mandates or federal recommendations fit every circumstance. And we made decisions that we believed to be in the best interest of our community. And we took some criticism for that. But overall, I would say that those who chose that kind of a pathway were probably more rewarded than not. +++++++++++++++++++= [00:24:20] Tommy Thomas: I'll ask you two final questions and we'll try to land this thing. Go to the board and the CEO's succession plan. What have y'all done there to ensure some sort of untimely succession?  [00:24:35] Paul Maurer: So we're actually just starting that conversation like literally last Friday at the board meeting with kind of keyman questions. And we haven't done a lot there on the longer question of succession. I've started thinking about that. I'd like to stay longer. I don't really have an interest in retirement. Not at this point anyway. And today I'd love to go another decade or so. We'll see what happens. But I'm increasingly of the mind that the best succession plan is to bring one or more people onto your team who may have the potential and groom them.  Talk openly about succession and see what happens with the possibility that the CEO can actually play a central role in the recommendation of his or her successor. The way the church does this, and the way colleges and universities do this, in my experience the pastor and the president really play very little role at all. Either limited or none. And the more I've been thinking about this and talking to peers about this, the less that makes sense to me. And again, in a healthy situation, the board I think could and should rightly lean on and engage at a very deep level, the CEO of the college to say, what do you think? Who do you think we should hire? What are the core competencies? Can we get that person on board? And so, what I'd like to do in the years ahead is get two or three, maybe even four people on my cabinet who have the potential capacity for becoming a college president and see if we can't raise one of them up into the role as my successor. Whether that works or not, I can't predict that, but that to me seems like a wise model if you can do it healthfully.  [00:26:43] Tommy Thomas: What are you going to say if you get a call next week from either a friend or maybe someone you don't know that says Paul, I've been asked to serve on a nonprofit board. What kind of council are you giving somebody who's considering a nonprofit board service?  [00:27:00] Paul Maurer: It ought to be done with a significant measure of time, talent, and treasure. It ought to be a major commitment of yours if you're serving on lots of nonprofit boards. Unless you're willing to put this new one at a higher level of commitment than the others, maybe you shouldn't do it. I think that the best board members of nonprofits are vested. They've got skin in the game. They're giving of their time, their talent, and significantly of their treasure. The treasure's the hardest one, I think. We ask all of our trustees to commit to Montreat being a top three philanthropic priority prior to trusteeship. And that's a stumbling block for some people. But I think in the end, it also fosters the creation of a board that has skin in the game and that really is serious about the future of the institution. It's not a casual kind of volunteering. It's a serious kind of volunteering.  [00:28:13] Tommy Thomas: It has been great. Paul, this has been so much fun. Thank you for carving out an hour and a half of your time for me. I appreciate it. [00:28:20] Paul Maurer: Tommy, I've enjoyed it very much. You ask a lot of very good questions and I'm certain that your podcasts are of great value to those in leadership and those thinking about leadership. So, thank you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:28:32] Tommy Thomas (2): Next week, we're going to conclude the conversation that we started with Caryn Ryan and Episode 84. In that conversation, Caryn shared her leadership journey from BP/AMOCO to CFO for World Vision International to her current role as Founder and Managing Member of Missionwell.   In next week's episode, Caryn will be sharing lessons on nonprofit board governance that she's learned over the years.  [00:29:04] Caryn Ryan: There's a lot of financial literacy questions there. So how can you ask tough questions if you can't read the financial statements or financial reports and understand them? And sometimes there's issues with what's delivered to boards too, in terms of information, but sometimes it's just a basic lack of understanding. I think too, there's also a fundamental issue that sometimes with boards, they don't get enough board development or board training and they really just don't understand their key role when it comes to accountability. And so, they don't understand that it's their job to ask the tough questions. ++++++++++++++++   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Montreat College Website The Miracle at Montreat Montreat College Facebook Montreat College Instagram   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Paul Maurer's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Paul Maurer: I've had mentors for probably close to 45 years now, and early on it was people who reached out to me. And then as I got older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I began to reach out to others to ask them to mentor me. People who I thought were wiser, more experienced, had something to contribute, could sharpen an area where I wasn't particularly sharp. And so the collection of mentors over the course of my lifetime is not small and in the aggregate has played a very powerful role in my life. +++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:37] Tommy Thomas: Today, we'll begin a two-part series with Paul Mauer, the president of Montreat College. When Paul was selected to be the president of Montreat, the college wasn't very far from closing its doors. What's happened at Montreat over the past nine years is nothing short of miraculous. Today Paul will share a bit of his leadership journey and the early days of his presidency at Montreat.  Before we dive too deep into your professional career, let's go back to your childhood a little bit. What two or three experiences do you think happened back then that shaped you into the man you are today?  [00:01:16] Paul Maurer: I think being raised in a stable home with a mother and father who stayed together and taught me the value of work and they modeled consistency. They modeled resiliency, they modeled work ethic. In addition to the DNA that I got from my parents, I was deeply shaped by watching a low drama, stable home environment.  [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: So, what was high school like?  [00:01:48] Paul Maurer: Honestly, pretty unremarkable except for the fact that I came to faith during high school as a sophomore through the Ministry of Young Life, and that changed everything. I began to understand friendship. I began to understand love. I began to understand family in a whole new way. I began to understand the power, the body of Christ. I began to understand fellowship. I began to understand purpose and meaning in life. I'd grown up in a stable moral home, but not a home of faith. And so as I got plugged into the church and youth group as a 15 year old sophomore in high school, I felt like I began to see things that I simply could not see before that.  [00:02:38] Tommy Thomas:   When you got to college how did you decide on your major? [00:02:42] Paul Maurer: Anything without math.  So, I chose psychology and communications as my two majors, and early in college, I began to sense a call to ministry and I was at the University of Cincinnati, so I wasn't at a faith-based college. I chose majors that would help me understand people better and to communicate better. And those were things that were interesting to me.  [00:03:13] Tommy Thomas: What's something that most people are always surprised to learn about you?  [00:03:19] Paul Maurer: I am a first gen. My parents were immigrants. I don't know whether they're surprised by that, but it's an important part of my past and informs a lot of how I think about the college presidency today and how I think about our students. I had the benefit of immigrant parents and the challenge of immigrant parents, and both were real, and both were formative and powerful in my life.  [00:03:45] Tommy Thomas: So go back to maybe to your first management job when you actually had some people reporting to you. What do you remember? [00:03:53] Paul Maurer: I don't know if it was my first management job, but I learned early in management that there's a reason people don't want to manage people. It takes a lot of time. It's hard to build culture. There's a lot of self-interest. There's a natural silo mentality to individuals who work for you, and in the worst-case scenario, there are lawsuits to deal with. And so as I've observed human behavior and leadership I've observed a lot of people who simply don't want to manage people. And so I think if you're in a role of leadership, you've got to decide pretty early on or certainly somewhere early along the way, whether or not you're willing to manage people and take the challenges that come with the benefits of management and leadership. [00:04:47] Tommy Thomas: It seems like in our culture that that's a natural career track that maybe people expect you to go to work and become a manager. And there doesn't seem to be a key contributor role necessarily at the forefront. Do you have any observations on that? [00:05:03] Paul Maurer: I think as a young person the expectations I think ought to be toward how do I contribute, how do I learn, how do I get mentored? How do I show that I'm worthy of more responsibility? And, as a young person, I demonstrated trust in those areas. They may be given leadership but not everyone, of course, is a natural leader and some people don't want to lead, and others learn the leadership skills along the way.  And so I think it's a very organic process, particularly for someone in their twenties and thirties.  [00:05:50] Tommy Thomas: Successful people are asked all the time, what makes you successful? And I'm sure you've been asked that question. I'd like to frame it a little bit differently. What's a factor that's helped you succeed that most people on the outside probably wouldn't realize or recognize? [00:06:06] Paul Maurer: For me I think the most important part of that was mentors who believed in me. Again, I was a first gen. I didn't have a lot of confidence in my academic ability. I didn't have a lot of confidence in who I am. And I was a young Christian by the time I'd gotten to college. The power of affirmation was very great in my life. A couple of mentors who said who I regarded and respected, people who spoke into my life, and then they spoke affirmation into my life. And I'll never forget how incredibly powerful that was in helping me gain confidence in who God might be making me into, and the roles that God might be leading me into. And I'm mindful of that in my role in leadership, that the power of affirmation spoken in the right context, in the right hearing can be extraordinarily powerful, disproportionately powerful, to how a young person develops and believes in themself and believes what God has in store for them. [00:07:19] Tommy Thomas: Did these mentors just show up or do you think they were intentional in terms of seeing you and taking you on as a mentee?  [00:07:29] Paul Maurer: It was a combination. I've had mentors all my life, so I've had mentors for probably close to 45 years now, and early on it was people who reached out to me. And then as I got older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I began to reach out to others to ask them to mentor me. People who I thought were wiser, more experienced, had something to contribute, could sharpen an area where I wasn't particularly sharp. And so the collection of mentors over the course of my lifetime is not small and in the aggregate has played a very powerful role in my life. [00:08:11] Tommy Thomas: Do you think college students today are open to mentors? Do they seek that out or are they on a different wavelength?  [00:08:18] Paul Maurer: I wouldn't generalize that. I think some are and some aren't, and I think that was probably the way it was when I was a college student. Some aren't. If you're hungry, if you want to grow, if you want to learn, if you have a vision for the future, if you have some requisite version of humility that you don't have all the answers, don't know everything, then I think people are very open to mentoring. I've got a student who works in my office 10 hours per week every semester here, so-called the Wilson Scholars Program here at the college. And my Wilson Scholar this year was a sophomore student from Ukraine. And she was hungry. She's really eager to learn and she has tremendous promise. But not everyone is like that, not everyone has those qualities. So I would be very hesitant to generalize about a generation and say it just depends. +++++++++++++++++++++   [00:09:12] Tommy Thomas: Okay. I've never asked this next question to anybody because I don't think I've interviewed anybody that studied the American presidency in graduate school and I just think that's fascinating. And I'm just wondering if you might just reflect back on that for a few minutes and talk about are there any generalizations you learned about the American presidency and leadership and influence? [00:09:35] Paul Maurer: Yeah, I love talking about that topic and I was drawn to the American presidency because I'm very interested in leadership and I'm very interested in faith and scripture, and I'm very interested in American politics, and the intersection of all those things led me to the American presidency and to do research on the role of moral and religious rhetoric during the course of the American presidency. And so I created a lexicon of distinctly religious rhetoric for the American presidency that stretched from Washington through Clinton. I was in grad school at the time, shortly after Clinton, so that's where the research took me. And I discovered that there was a tremendous amount of increased use of distinctly religious rhetoric, beginning with Jimmy Carter in the White House and the modern era, starting with Carter and extending to Reagan. And then Clinton as well, had very high levels of religious and moral rhetoric as part of how these presidents spoke. And that before that they weren't exceptionally low in particular, but they spiked during the, particularly the Carter and Reagan years. And so the focus of my research was a comparative analysis between Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, a Democrat or Republican back-to-back presidents and how they used religious and moral rhetoric in their presidency in particular, did they tie it to any public policy initiatives that were important to them as US President? [00:11:14] Tommy Thomas:  Was it Reagan? No, I guess it was the Bush White House that did the faith-based initiative. Did any of your research have a tie to that initiative? [00:11:25] Paul Maurer: So for Jimmy Carter, he tied his faith rootedness, his understanding of scripture - his belief in a transcendent God. He tied that to human rights. What was interesting to me as I studied his rhetoric and record and policy on human rights is that the definition of human rights really expanded pretty dramatically in Carter's thinking and rhetoric. And I think it extended beyond his biblical understanding of faith. He might argue differently. But I thought it went beyond that. And for Reagan this question of liberty was directly tied to his belief in God and the Bible, and tied directly to his disdain, even hatred of communism. He thought that communism was a suppression of God-given liberty, and we needed to exercise our right to that God-given liberty and anyone who sought to oppress it he had very low esteem for, and of course, before he became a politician, he was an actor in Hollywood.  It was a time in Hollywood where there was infiltration in Hollywood of certain communist elements. Tax rates were for him as an actor and the 90% range. And so there was a disincentive for him to work beyond a certain level of income. And so he grew both personally, professionally, but also politically to a point where he really sought to unhinge communism if he could possibly do and of course, as the forces of history were what they were, we saw the Berlin Wall come down. It wasn't simply Ronald Reagan. There were obviously economic factors in the Soviet Union. It was the economic pressures at the time. There were things being done behind the scenes from the papacy in Rome, but ultimately his focus on liberty resulted in part in the Berlin Wall coming down. So that was Reagan's primary connection to his faith as a public policy endeavor.  [00:13:50] Tommy Thomas: Man, I bet that was some fascinating research in writing.  [00:13:53] Paul Maurer: It kept me interested, which is what you want in a dissertation. You don't want to wake up going, gosh, I hate my dissertation today. ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:13:59] Tommy Thomas: Absolutely. Let's go to Montreat for a little bit. Depending on who one talks with, many would say it was nothing short of a miracle - what's happened in Montreat over the past few years. Can you take us into that?  [00:14:13] Paul Maurer:  Montreat today is 107 years old. Our campus is physically a small campus set against a mountain cove in Montreat, North Carolina, just outside of Asheville and the western mountains of the state. The campus was built for 500 students, but economics, the course of higher education in the last 20 or 30 years make that very difficult to survive. And so over many decades, really, as I'm told, Montreat had a number of near-death experiences where, of course, Montreat is where Billy and Ruth Graham lived for most of their lives after they got married.  They actually got married in what today is our college chapel. We have a church that meets there, and they attended there when they were in town. But the college was too small and enrollment had declined. And in 2013, the college went into merger conversations with the school in Georgia. A year later, that merger conversation collapsed, and the college really had two options. As we see it, one is to close and the other is for God to show up in a big way. And there's a longer version of the story. But the quick version is that there was a donor who had visited the area a year and a half earlier and attended the church of one of our adjunct faculty members. And they began, after they went back to their home state after a seven-month sabbatical here, they began sending gifts to the church. The pastor didn't know these people well and wondered what was going on, but they were sending 50 and a hundred thousand dollar checks out of the blue without request. And a year and a half later, that faculty member, Jerry, is his name, reached out to the couple and said, we don't have a lot of needs at the church, but the college is in dire straits. Might you consider something big for the last fully Christ-centered four-year college in the state of North Carolina, in over six weeks of email only. Never a call, never visit. They never talked to a trustee. They made a 6 million pledge to the college. And so the trustees interpreted that as a miracle, I think rightly they started a search and I started a few months later and we got busy fast. There's a Gospel Coalition article that was written in 2019 by Sarah Altra entitled The Montreat Miracle. And if anyone wants to read that, just Google Montreat Miracle Gospel Coalition and the article will pop up. It's a remarkable story and we do think that God has a future and a purpose for this college, and he made it clearer when he prompted that couple to make that 6 million pledge. [00:17:03] Tommy Thomas: So what did your first hundred days look like?  [00:17:07] Paul Maurer: It's all a blur, Tommy. We knew the clock was ticking even with a 6 million pledge, because at $300,000 per month hitting our back account, you're getting to $6 million in about two and a half years. We knew that wasn't enough, but we knew it was something very significant and we considered it what we called gas money. So we're fixing the plane while it's flying. And that was gas money to keep the plane in the air while we fixed it. And when a college has been in merger discussions for a year, there are a lot of things that aren't going well and that get reconfigured, org charts get squirrely, people leave. When I walked in the door in July 2014, I had five open cabinet positions and my VP of student life had started on July 1st. He was a green newbie to the role. And so, I had to find a cabinet. I had some interims in place, but I didn't have permanent people in place. I'd hire a cabinet to a college that had just gone through a near death experience. And we knew we had to grow enrollment. We knew we had to have a stable enrollment in fall of 2014. And by God's grace there were, a hundred fifty, a hundred forty-six new students, which is right at the five year average. But you can tell from 150 new students if you know anything about college enrollment, that is just way too small for sustainability. So we knew that we had to make a promise to the marketplace, but the most important thing that we did was to clarify our Christ-centered identity. We knew that if we were going to be a Christian college, we had to actually make that known and make sure that the core documents of the college, the mission statement, the statement of faith, the vision statement, the community life covenant, reflected a biblical worldview. The board agreed with that, and we got busy with that and we made some adjustments to the statement of faith. We put infallibility back into the statement of faith in a community life covenant that we added. We affirm that marriage is between one man and one woman as a biblical standard society. But God's design for marriage is exclusively one man and one woman. And that life begins at conception. And these are biblical principles that we believe are taught clearly in scripture. And we made those documents a condition of employment for the first time in the college's history and we took a lot of heat for that. It got really hot and we took a lot of criticism, and then 30 days later, the criticism kind of dried up, honestly. And the people who were supporting the fact that we took a courageous stand began to come out of the woodwork. They were there on the first 30 days as well, but they were left alone standing after 30 or 45 days. And so we've hired a mission. We have unity on campus, and the families of our region who care about that kind of education, who care about the moral compass for their sons and daughters, caught their attention. So all that bad publicity was actually great publicity for the college.   [00:20:43] Tommy Thomas: So on your team you mentioned you had one rookie. Did you have a kind of a mixed bag of seasoned veterans and upstarts, or did you have to groom everything from the get-go? [00:20:56] Paul Maurer: It was a bunch of interims and so I had to hire five cabinet members for my first year, and a friend of mine suggested that we were a version of Ernest Shackleton's or Antarctic Exploration. And if you know anything about those years, Shackleton had an ad that he placed in the London Times in 1912 and the ad read as follows, men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. And I gulped a few times, and then I went, that's actually who we are. We're the Christian college version of that. And I began to overtly recruit with that ad to the cabinet members who I was interviewing as finalists. And my simple question was, I asked them, I pulled up my phone, read this aloud, and then I would ask the question, does this ad excite you? Hint, hint. The only right answer is something like, oh yes, very much. And that's the team that I hired to come here. In 2014 and 2015 they came from all over the country. My CFO had a Harvard MBA. My Chief Academic Officer had his PhD from Cornell. And these were really high achieving, high academic, highly experienced people. But they came because they believed in this mission. They wanted to give their lives to something bigger. And I think they loved the challenge and to some degree they were willing to take the risk. Becuase I told them the only thing I can guarantee you is that you'll work harder than you've ever worked and you'll work faster than you've ever worked. And beyond that, I don't know if we're going to be open six or 12 months from now. And they came.  [00:22:49] Tommy Thomas: So fast forward we're recording this in May. You've got the fall quarter coming in August. What do things look like for the next term?  [00:22:58] Paul Maurer: So enrollment has grown here by over 70% in the last eight years, our traditional undergrad. And we're anticipating a new record enrollment for the fall of 23. We've added a number of new programs in our hundred percent online division. Most of those are master's programs. We now have 10 master's programs. Seven of them are in the last two years, and our online enrollment is beginning to grow because of those master's programs. And then our signature program has become cybersecurity and we've added a organization underneath Montreat College to help harden the cybersecurity defenses for the state, but also to generate a new revenue stream for the college because in the end, we've got to build a new business model, a new revenue economic model for the college, which is not aimed at survival, but is aimed at thriving. We have no interest in survival. We have interest in leadership and thriving, and so we're trying to build something that's very robust in both educational and economic terms.  ++++++++++++++++++++++= [00:24:10] Tommy Thomas: Let's say that you had another one of these mega donors or foundations that came up to you and said they had a pretty large amount of money that they would give to you for your next big venture. Do you have a guess of what that might be or that might be classified?  [00:24:28] Paul Maurer: I wouldn't say it's classified, I've got two or 300 million worth of those ventures because our vision is to become the school of choice for thoughtful evangelicals for the Southeast United States, the Premier Christ Center University for the Southeast United States. Combining academic rigor with biblical orthodoxy. We have a whole campus to build, to sustain the growth or to accommodate the growth that we envision. We'd like our traditional undergrad to be between 1,200. We're a little under 700 today, and our facilities are maxed out. We've been out of beds for five years. We've been renting beds from camps and conference centers for five years now, six years. We've got residence halls to build. We've got academic buildings to build. We've got athletic facilities to build. We've got the property. We just need the capital to build the campus. I need to build the endowment. We know that. We have to be able to fund scholarships beyond our discount rate, operational scholarships and we want to start things in surrounding cities around us. I'm looking to really become the college to be known and trusted as is the premier Christ Center University. Like in the city of Charlotte, which is two hours from us. It's far enough for the students, not too far for the parents and because we're the last Christ-centered four year college in the state of North Carolina, that's a footprint that we need to grow. So I literally have, Tommy, probably two, three, four hundred million worth of projects and we're ready to go with a good bit of that. We just need the cash to do that. [00:26:24] Tommy Thomas: I want to bring this part to a close before I switch over to board service. What's the main thing you wish somebody had told you earlier in your career?  [00:26:34] Paul Maurer: Not to think more highly of myself than I ought, pride is a way of creeping in with leaders. It certainly did with me and my first presidency. This is my second presidency and my first presidency, honestly there was a part of me that thought they're lucky to have me. And I know that humility was not at the top of my value proposition. I don't think I was overbearing or narcissistic or anything but if you don't have humility as the top of your value proposition as a leader, and you allow yourself to drink some of the Kool-Aid that's going to have a bad effect. And honestly, probably someone probably did tell me that ahead of time, I'm not sure I had the ears to hear it or that I heard it, but I wish I'd have embraced that lesson earlier in my career than I did.  [00:27:39] Tommy Thomas:  If you were speaking next week to a group of incoming presidents from small liberal arts colleges around the United States, what would be the theme of your address? [00:27:51] Paul Maurer: I started my first presidency 13 or 14 years ago, and I remember going to the president's conferences and coming back after two or three of those, and I said to my cabinet, here's my takeaway, change or die. And then I was out of the presidency for a couple years. I began to go back to those meetings again. When I came to Montreat nine years ago, and I came back to my cabinet, I said, they've inserted the words fast change, faster, die. We've taken on the mindset of a startup. So we consider ourselves a 107 year old startup. We're not a turnaround. We're not maintainers, we're not traditionalists. We try to employ the principles of a startup, meaning we're creating something new. And so I think in the next five to 10 years, we're going to see a pretty dramatic change in the number of colleges and universities in the United States. The enrollment cliff is real. The declining birth rates are real. And it's going to have a really major impact on the number of schools that close. The most vulnerable schools are the state universities that are losing enrollment and not filling space. So I think in those cases, the state systems will do mergers. Privates aren't prone to mergers. And so I think we're going to see more closures of small privates unless the presidents of those institutions are creative and agile and willing to take risks and invest heavily in things that work and starve things that aren't, and end tenure and act more like a startup. Fail fast, make decisions with deliberation and speed. And I think to the degree that we're going to see success among the privates in particular, I think the presidents will embody some combination of those qualities.  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Join us again next week as we continue this conversation with Paul Maurer. That episode will take a deep dive into Paul's experience in board service and governance.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Montreat College Website The Miracle at Montreat Montreat College Facebook Montreat College Instagram   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Paul Maurer's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Jerry White: Risk has to be uncertain categories. There's legal risk, there's financial risk, and then there's what I call uncontrolled risk of things you don't expect that the government may impose. What if they decide for our property at Glen Erie that it no longer is going be tax exempt? Or what if the state were to do that sort of thing? Those are risks over which we have no control. The risk on leveraged investments, I think, is quite important. For instance, you may propose to a larger organization a $3 million project, but the money is not in the bank. And you have four donors who said they'll fund it, but will they, and if they do, what voice should they have in it? That's a huge thing.  Money given with strings attached is really quite risky. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:01:02] Tommy Thomas: In this episode, we will conclude the conversation that we began with Jerry White in Episode 85. If you didn't hear that episode, Jerry White is the President Emeritus of The Navigators International. Prior to that he enjoyed a distinguished career in the United States Air Force, retiring as a two-star general. One of the reasons I wanted Jerry to be a guest is because of the depth of his nonprofit board service.  Among the boards he has served include  World Vision,  The Navigators.  Christian Leadership Alliance.  The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization.  The Air Force Association.  Let's pick up the conversation where we were beginning to discuss board governance.  Let's shift over to board service. How did your first board show up? [00:01:56] Jerry White: My first board that I served on was a small organization and besides a church board, every board is different. When I got into leading boards, like the Christian Leadership Alliance and being on boards like World Vision and leading The Navigator board the biggest thing is who you have on the board.  And that they understand what their role is on the board.  And my view is that they're not operational. They don't make operational decisions, and they give the CEO a clear path to glide on. And hold that person accountable. And on the board service, I found it extremely important to have people of varied backgrounds and competencies so that we weren't all monolithic and the board could not be a rubber stamp board, whatever the leader wants. Yeah, that's fine. Just go ahead and do it. But to take on true, what I call policy governance, and to realize that you aren't running it, but you're holding the CEO accountable for what they say they're going to do. And once in a while you have to intervene.  [00:03:14] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned having the right people on the board.  What is the secret sauce? [00:03:20] Jerry White: One secret sauce is you don't bring them on just because they've got money. That's probably the worst criteria you can have if people do not share the vision of that organization on whose board they serve. You don't want them on there. And if they happen to have wealth and are generous people, that's fine, but we don't own them. They have to be people who give more broadly. And before we bring someone on the board we have to first make sure for me, in the Christian world, to make sure that there are people of spiritual maturity. Not just people with a high reputation or lead a big church or are well known. I would not care if none of the people on my board were well known as long as they were people of high integrity and then have had some experience. We're always pushing for getting a younger generation of board members, but there's a limit to that. You have to be sure that they're really qualified as they come in. And then the next thing that I feel is extremely important is you train. You train them how to be a board member and what's expected of them as a board member. In a few weeks, I'll be going to Kenya with The Navigators and we'll be gathering the board chairman from all over the world for a time of interaction and sharing. That's a trickier one, by the way, when you become a board chair, is how to become a board chair, particularly in our developing world where things aren't quite westernized as much. Yeah. And what should a board really do? Because people have different experiences. It's different from a second board, a secondary board who has financial responsibility and is held accountable for the quantitative results of the organization. That's a whole different picture, a different kind of board. [00:05:40] Tommy Thomas:  Let's go to the board chair. Give me some words and phrases that would describe the best board chair you've ever seen or served under.  [00:05:48] Jerry White: I'll tell you, there are two board chairs that I think of. One was a man by the name of Clay Brown. He wasn't the board chair, because I was chairman at the time. But he was certainly the key senior statesman on our board. He was measured. He was wise. He had a strong business background, and he had a passion for what we did. Our current Board Chair for The Navigators is doing an absolutely remarkable job and he leads several companies but has really given himself to being Chairman of The Navigator US board. The other thing is that the Board Chairman cannot be a jack of all trades. In other words, they can't be chairman of five different boards at once. Because I don't think anybody who has another job has that kind of time. But in knowing that they bear a particular responsibility within that organization to draw together the board, the executive team or the executive committee, and to really help lead them and keep them in their track and their track being on the policy governance side. And so the board chairs, and when I've done a board, I hope I've done this, is to really be prepared. You do not do this on the backhand, walking into a board meeting and 10 minutes ahead of time asking the CEO – what's the agenda? [00:07:25] Tommy Thomas:  Speaking about that working relationship, I know that's critical. Think back on your experience. How often does the Board Chair need to meet with his or her CEO? [00:07:35] Jerry White: First of all, they need to be friends, but I remember as a board member of a particular organization I wanted to be friends with the CEO and very much was. Then I became Board Chair and I said to him, our relationship is going to be a little different. I am your friend, but also, I'm accountable for the direction of the organization. And therefore, I'm going to be asking things of you that maybe I would not do if I was just a good buddy walking alongside and wanting to affirm you. So I think you need to be friends, but you'll also need to know that you have the responsibility for the policy direction of the organization and for the health and wellbeing of the CEO.  [00:08:27] Tommy Thomas: Go to that board meeting for a minute. What's been your best experience and who sets the agenda for the Board Meeting? [00:08:32] Jerry White:  For me, the Executive Committee needs to set the agenda. It needs to be proposed by the CEO because he knows the action items. And you've got certain performer things you've got to do on accountability of finances and income and disbursements and so forth and certain things on personnel. But I would want the CEO to come up with a list of what needs to be addressed, work with that CEO and perhaps the CFO to create an agenda with the Executive Committee that actually says how is this going to serve the work? And what are the decisions?  And I have three ways of assessing an agenda for the Board Meeting. What is information? We don't have to make any decision on it.  What is counsel? The CEO or somebody wants counsel on a particular item.  What decision needs to be made? So, every topic in the board meeting, I like to write along the side, the margin, inform counsel, decide. [00:09:48] Tommy Thomas: From a functional point of view, they wouldn't necessarily be in any order. They just as they come up, they're one of those three.  [00:09:58] Jerry White: No, it'd be one of the three. Your board meeting is usually divided into segments.  The CEO Report The Field Ministry Report The CFO Report Then there's a legal report. There may be certain personnel decisions that need to be affirmed. And by the way, that could be another way you would put it to affirm a decision. That's a little weak. And so you would structure your meeting not according to what you're going to decide, but according to what topics need to be addressed in the 24 hours you have together. And by the way, to really require that homework be done on the part of the staff making the decisions that “read-aheads” are there. And the right people come to make reports inside the meetings.  ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:10:51] Tommy Thomas: When somebody joins your board what does onboarding look like? [00:10:55] Jerry White: The onboarding looks for several organizations I've been working for two to three years with before they come on board, talking with them about it, seeing their interest,  getting a biography, bringing it to what I would call the nomination committee of the board. And the good boards that I work with have a roster of people that they're talking to that's very confidential and some of them never come on the board. And then as they are approaching it, you may even ask someone to actually sit in on a board meeting. And to see whether or not it meets their expectations. That isn't always possible. But in one board that I'm on, we have some junior members on it. This is on a board where we have younger leaders who come and serve for two years, and they don't stay on the board, just to give them experience. But then when you're onboarding, every board annually at least, there needs to be, in my mind, an orientation for the board where you go over the history of the board, you go over things. So they're not just in a befuddled mystery at terminology and history. It's like being in a family joke and nobody knows what the story was behind it. They have things that are ongoing and they have no clue. We need to bring them up to speed, both emotionally, historically, and personally. And it doesn't need to be long. It's for maybe half a day. And I've done this in a secular organization too, insisting that no one come on the board who doesn't have some orientation, both as to what a board does and what a board has done. [00:12:55] Tommy Thomas: Do you do a meeting evaluation or how do you keep your meetings fresh?  [00:13:00] Jerry White: Most boards do have a little evaluation afterward that they fill out. It's often, Tommy, their perfunctory and there of some limited value, the value mainly being that you asked, but I think the Chairman and the CEO, when they see things happening in the board, that afterwards they need to interact with them and saying, what do you think about it? How do you feel that board meeting went? And now that you've been in on X number of board meetings, say to tell me what you think and how can we help you be a better board member? Committee assignments are pretty important. Also, when I went on one board, it took me, Tommy, it took me two years to really figure out what was going on. And I served nine years and it was such a complex organization that it was really hard and took a lot of work to try and understand the dynamics behind this organization  [00:14:08] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you to respond to this quote. “You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant. Someone who will force people to think a little differently.  That's what a good board does.”  [00:14:21] Jerry White: In one board that I'm on, we appoint someone at every board meeting to be what we call a responsible skeptic. And that person is designated ahead of time. And that person, their job in that board meeting is to be a bit skeptical. Now, I think you have to be a little careful about always having a person who's always skeptical. I don't think I want a board member who every time something comes up, they raise their eyebrow, and you wonder what they're thinking. I think everybody ought to be a little skeptical at some time. And the main thing is if they don't understand something they need to ask. In other words, they need to do it. I was in a board meeting recently where a particular decision was in the process. And two of us on the board, I was an emeritus to the board, and the other was on the board. And I could tell there was a bit of discomfort. And so the chair asked that other person, they hadn't said anything, what do you think? And came up with a pretty good counter. Now I haven't got real good hearing, so I couldn't hear what he said. And then the board chair said, Jerry, what do you think? And I was like a deer caught in the headlights. And I said I couldn't hear what he said. And I said, we said exactly the same thing. And what was moving down the road to be a crafted decision was put aside and not done. I'm very wary of creating board actions on the spot, a statement or whatever it may be. The best way is to say, would somebody take this and come up in three or four hours, take a coffee break and craft us a statement on what we're trying to do. So I do believe that the chair needs to be able to look in the eyeball all around the way and see if there are some questions or if someone has been particularly silent, I think you need to say what do you think?  ++++++++++++++++   [00:16:34] Tommy Thomas: How do you draw that quiet board member out?  Some people just don't speak up unless they have something to say, which is probably a good thing. But how do you draw the quiet person out?  [00:16:46] Jerry White: I just say, Jack, what do you think about that? I say be very direct. I say, you've been listening to this discussion. Do you have anything to say? I don't want to force him to have to say something, but I say, this may be the expertise of the person that I'm asking. And I'll say Joan, your expertise is in this area, I know you've been through this before. What are we not hearing? What questions do you have? And that gives them freedom to speak out. And the other thing is I don't think people should speak out, particularly declaratively. That is, I believe this, and you got to do this. And I don't like that because that puts themselves on the table. But people learn to be able to share in a non-confrontive fashion. [00:17:44] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to financial accountability. You and I are old enough to remember the Enron scandal, and then if you've been paying any attention to the last two or three days, you've seen the Silicon Valley Bank go under.  In both of those things, there was board culpability. Neither were nonprofit, but they will both board culpability.  How do you get your boards to make sure you're addressing the financial aspect, a judiciary responsibility of the board?  [00:18:10] Jerry White:  It's a CEO's responsibility to make sure that the right questions are answered.  And it's got to be more than just an audit.  We want a clean audit. And you don't want to have to go to the bottom notes and say, here's something we should correct, but we need to guide the board through the financial realities of what we're doing. But at the end of it, I think you need to have a risk analysis that says, okay, where are we vulnerable? For instance, in our litigious society today, we have a lot of risk, and I think of ministries that have Christian camps and all the sexual liabilities and all of that. They are at risk all the time when you're working with minors and then I think people need to ask questions of the CFO and the auditor, where do you see us being at risk? What would happen if, what if happened? You have a September 11 or you have a Covid pandemic. And you have to say, our whole income stream is going to be jeopardized. And then I think you need to look and say, where are our major vulnerabilities for both expenditure as well as income? Now that's, it's very different in a Christian organization than it is a secular organization like an Enron or the banks or whatever it is. The fault there goes so that people don't ask questions, or that the actual realities have been hidden from it and just saying, oh, it'll be okay.  ++++++++++++++++++= [00:19:56] Tommy Thomas: From your perspective, how does the board get involved in strategic planning?  [00:20:02] Jerry White: Boy, that is a good question, Tommy. The question is, who does the strategic planning? Okay. Let's say that we're in a very small developing organization amid developing, and a large organization, they're very different and the very smallest organizations, the board may be highly engaged in the strategic plan because it's such a small organization and they're so fragile. As a general rule of thumb, the board may do strategic thinking, but strategic planning has to be on the part of the CEO and his or her staff. And the plan needs to be brought to the board for their interaction. And then approval. And that's particularly true with a large organization. The board can't do strategic planning. They can do some strategic planning for the board. That is, how should we develop our board? What expertise do we need? But as far as a ministry for most organizations, as large as the navigators or crew or some others, they aren't gonna know the details of what's going on out in the field or how they have to pretty well react and respond to the strategic planning initiatives that they may come up with. How many staff, what countries are we doing to go into? What are we not going to do? What are we gonna stop doing etc. So the board certainly needs to approve the strategic plan. Chances are, even when they do that, They won't know it very well. I'm just sorry that, when you're not, when you don't have to carry out a strategic plan, it's hard to really know it. [00:22:00] Tommy Thomas: The ones that created it, that have been involved in hammering it out, they're the ones that know it. [00:22:06] Jerry White: That's right. And then you have to, with every strategic plan, you have to set, have a set of outcomes and a set of risks, and then you have to say, how much is it going to cost to implement this? [00:22:22] Tommy Thomas: I think the risk thing, that could almost be a podcast in and of itself. I interviewed Dr. Sandra Gray, the President Emeritus at Asbury University and she was a former banker before she got into higher ed. And her thought was that nonprofit boards probably don't pay enough attention to the risk of the organization. [00:22:40] Jerry White: I think there's no question on that, especially risk has to be uncertain categories.  There's legal risk, there's financial risk, and then there's what I call uncontrolled risk of things you don't expect that the government may impose. What if they decide for our property at Glen Erie that it no longer is going to be tax exempt? Or what if the state were to do that sort of thing? Those are risks over which we have no control and the risk on leveraged investments, I think is quite important. For instance, you may propose to a larger organization a $3 million project, but the money is not in the bank. And you have four donors who said they'll fund it, but will they, and if they do, what voice should they have in it?  That's a huge thing. Money given with strings on it is really quite risky.  [00:23:46] Tommy Thomas: Hadn't thought of that. [00:23:46] Jerry White: And I've served on the board of the ECFA and they're very good at this. In terms of helping people think through risk and failure and financial accountability.  [00:24:01] Tommy Thomas: Let's look at the CEO evaluation.  I know you've been involved in a number of those, and you've been evaluated as a CEO. What are some takeaways? [00:24:10] Jerry White: You must be evaluated. Now we have a number of kinds of evaluations. You have a 360 evaluation, and some people are very skilled at that. It's very threatening to some CEOs, but it's necessary. I feel that there needs to be an evaluation within the organization, I had one. I had someone who evaluated me every year and they had the freedom, and they did call my wife, call my kids, talked to my coworkers, my peers, talked to those who worked for me, gave a free reign to ask certain questions. The questions need to be carefully thought through. They can't be so invasive. But the evaluation is of several levels. One is certain on a moral personal level. I do not think a committee can do that. Every CEO needs to have the kind of people in their lives who will blow the whistle on them if they say anything wrong. And the small Executive Committee needs to be aware of how that could happen. The second in terms of an evaluation is performance against set out goals. The third is relational. How's their team going? What do they think? What are the issues? And to give the feedback to the CEO and I think to give it privately and then in the board, and we do this to give a summary analysis, but the board should not be privy to the detailed questions. It's a really touchy process. And the evaluation needs to be, not be a pass fail, but Loren Sanny taught me it should be a progress review. How are you making progress toward the things that you have said you want to do? [00:26:15] Tommy Thomas: Let me close with a question that I ask often, particularly to people that have been on boards a long time as you have. How has board service changed over the last decade?  [00:26:25] Jerry White: I'm not sure about the last decade, but certainly over the last two decades the area of risk and financial accountability has increased tremendously. The litigiousness of our society has made a tremendous impact on how a board functions. So those two things, the financial accountability and the potential lawsuits and things of that nature. Tommy, I don't know that I can make a generalist statement about how boards have changed, but I can say that through the last 20 to 30 years, the boards have become more important and more vital to our organization's future than they were a number of years ago. Many years ago, even in The Navigators, the board was a cheering section for Dawson Trotman and Lawrence Annie.  Go get 'em and thanks for letting us know what's going on. To a point where we had to be accountable for the finances. 911 changed everything, by the way, particularly for anyone operating internationally. When you're sending money across international boundaries, you have a whole different level of accountability financially imposed by the government. And I'm speaking only from the viewpoint of the United States, and you get into all these other countries with all different kinds of demands and requirements and corruption and what have you. The boards have become far more important to the organization's health. And I think the public has a right to know who's on your board. And when I look at an organization as I've done even the last few days, and I look through who the board members are, it isn't that I need to know them, but that they're there as real people with real names that if one needed to, you could connect with them. ++++++++++++++++++++++ I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jerry White. If you're ever at a conference where Jerry is speaking or leading a breakout session, make sure you attend those sessions. We all have so much to learn from Jerry White. Our guest next week is Paul Mauer. Paul is the president of Montreat College.  When Paul was selected to be the President of Montreat, the college wasn't very far from closing its doors. What has happened at Montreat over the past nine years is nothing short of miraculous.  [00:29:06] Paul Maurer: I started my first presidency 13 or 14 years ago, and I remember going to the president's conferences and coming back after two or three of those, and I said to my cabinet, here's my takeaway, change or die. And then I was out of the presidency for a couple years. I began to go back to those meetings again. When I came to Montreat nine years ago, I came back to my cabinet, I said, they've inserted the words fast change, faster, die. We've taken on the mindset of a startup. So, we consider ourselves a 107-year-old startup. We're not a turnaround. We're not maintainers.  We're not traditionalists. We try to employ the principles of a startup, meaning we're creating something new. And so, I think in the next five to ten years, we're going to see a pretty dramatic change in the number of colleges and universities in the United States. The enrollment cliff is real. The declining birth rates are real. And it's going to have a really major impact on the number of schools that close.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Navigators Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability Christian Leadership Alliance   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Jerry White's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Lisa Cummins: I'm Hispanic, and so my growing up was in that context, Mexican American context. My church spoke Spanish. That's where I learned to speak Spanish, singing through the hymnals. Spanish was not my first language as it was with my parents because my parents had the experience, that was their first language, but they had the experience of being punished in school for speaking Spanish. So they never taught me Spanish. They wanted to make sure I had English down. Which ironically, now 20 years later, I sent my children to a Spanish immersion school because we recognize the benefit of that. +++++++++++++++++ Tommy Thomas: Today, we're beginning a two-part conversation with Lisa Trevino Cummins. Lisa spent the first 12 plus years of her career with Bank of America, where she expanded the bank's community development initiative to become one of the first national corporations to partner with faith-based organizations in underserved neighborhoods. From Bank of America, Lisa was called to help launch the White House Community and Faith Based Initiative to leverage the strength of community and faith-based organizations to serve children and families in need.  In 2003, she started Urban Strategies where she continues her work to make resources more available to underserved communities.  Since founding Urban Strategies, Lisa has been a catalyst of several initiatives that has resulted in almost $40 million of new programming focused in low-income communities.  [00:01:29] Tommy Thomas: Before we dive too deep into your professional life. Take me back to your childhood and what was growing up like? [00:01:35] Lisa Cummins: I grew up in Houston, Texas and my family, close family ties, my uncles and aunts were there and so when we had Thanksgiving there were about 60 of us on Thanksgiving and on Easter and Christmas. And so very closely knit. Our church was very much a part of who we were. My grandparents were pastors since they had been married and then had subsequent generations who were also in ministry. So the church was very much part of our activities. So we had Easter services and then Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.  And then our family activities revolved around that schedule.  [00:02:32] Tommy Thomas: What would you say is the best gift your parents gave you?  [00:02:35] Lisa Cummins: I think there's a few. One is a reverence for faith, a reverence for God and secondly, I think very much an entrepreneurial perspective. I've been told that some folks have used a slogan for me that says nothing's too complicated. And I think I learned that from my parents. Looking back, I didn't know that we were in poverty. I didn't know that those things didn't come. I wasn't aware of those things. But my father worked long hours and then started a business at home, so another eight hours after his regular job. And mom was able to spend a lot of time with us in between jobs and that sort of thing. But we never noticed. We never missed anything. But I think I always saw them as very entrepreneurial, always serving. That was a big part of what I've learned as well. We always had somebody living with us. There was always a handshake with an offering in it to help someone. So I learned a lot about service.  I learned a lot about resilience. I learned a lot about faith, and I learned a lot about resourcefulness. [00:03:47] Tommy Thomas: Can you think of the first time that entrepreneurship showed up in your activities?  [00:03:52] Lisa Cummins: I think entrepreneurship is the idea of taking initiative.  From just a social perspective, getting engaged in my church and starting things up, and let's do this and let's do that, let's organize around that. That was how it showed up in that way. I think from a business perspective, ironically, the first 12 years of my professional career were in banking. And so, one job banking, and you wouldn't necessarily associate entrepreneurship with those two terms, but I was able to really create my job in banking. And by God's grace, I was able to shape and form something that really was taken from a responsibility that nobody wanted. But the Lord gave me insight in how to do that and what the benefit was. I stayed there 12 years and kept always a dynamic situation.  [00:04:44] Tommy Thomas: So, what was high school like in Houston? [00:04:45] Lisa Cummins: I went to two high schools. I started out in engineering with a path for magnet school in engineering. So, it was an all-black school where this engineering program was on the second floor of the building. I'm Hispanic, and so my growing up was in that context, Mexican American context. My church spoke Spanish. That's where I learned to speak Spanish, singing through the hymnals.  Spanish was not my first language as it was with my parents because my parents had the experience of, that was their first language, but they had the experience of being punished in school for speaking Spanish. So they never taught me Spanish. They wanted to make sure I had English down. Ironically, now 20 years later, I sent my children to a Spanish immersion school because we recognized the benefit of that.  So, I went to an all-black school and it was an amazing experience. I loved it. And I played sports, I played basketball and volleyball. I was the only one on the team that wasn't black. But these girls became my dearest friends. And my parents would always come to my games and these girls would see my parents as their parents because they had no one rooting for them. After my freshman year, I ended up going back to a neighborhood school, which was more mixed white and Hispanic. But when we'd go play the opposing teams, it happened to be that all-black school, and they'd look for my mom first thing, where's your mama? Because they saw that she believed in them. Ironically when I went to this school again, basketball and volleyball. My teammates elected me to be the team captain. I was fairly good, but interestingly my coach would never play me. She favored other girls and even though they all felt like I was a caliber of being on the team. But in high school, I learned through that. I learned about leadership, I learned about friends, friendships, relationships. But I will say that even throughout all of this I was a different one becuase I was very engaged in my church. And because I was Hispanic, most folks thought I was Catholic, while I was Protestant, I wasn't Catholic. So just interesting navigating those things.  My church community was very strong, and had a strong youth group. We'd meet together three times a week. I will say that when I graduated, now, this was 1983, from high school. There was a big deal made of graduating from high school as in most churches. And so you come up to the front and they pray for you. When that happened to me, there's about 20 of us, and I think I'm the only one that finished college. Looking back, wow. But it wasn't because they weren't, they didn't have a capacity to be there were no, there was no access to resources, no access to the information. And with my parents, it was just, there was no discussion of it. We were going to be, we were going to go to college, university. And so that was the case with myself and my three brothers. So it's an interesting background.  [00:07:59] Tommy Thomas:  When you got to college, how did you decide upon a major? [00:08:02] Lisa Cummins: I went to high college and I was going to go into engineering until I realized how much calculus I was going to have to take. So, I decided that I wouldn't do that, that I would do business, and just because that seemed the most practical and actually accounting, which, now I'm going on a podcast saying this. I don't tell many people that I was an accounting major because they're going to expect things of me that I won't deliver. But I did go into accounting and that was an interesting place for me.  I actually ended up at Trinity University in San Antonio, which is considered the Ivy League of the South, if you will. And there were very affluent students, they were very affluent and I lived off campus. I was at school and attended every day. And I can tell you, Tommy, I probably had one friend. And there were many days I'd come home and realize I hadn't said a word. And it just, I didn't feel welcomed. I didn't feel like I fit. Part of that was, I'm sure it was me, right? Not feeling like I'm sufficient enough or good enough to be in the conversations that folks were having. And so, they were having conversations about their summer vacation, going to Greece or somewhere like that. And I was like what job am I going to have this summer? So there was just not an awareness among the differences. My back fall though was going to church. I went to school, and I worked so that I could be involved in the church in activities there. +++++++++++++++++++   [00:09:29] Tommy Thomas:  What's something that most people would be surprised to learn about you? [00:09:33] Lisa Cummins: Probably one that I was an accounting major. Two is that there were actually years in my life where I didn't speak to anyone. And I still play basketball. I play in a women's group on Sunday nights when I'm in town. Because of my church background and my church tradition, I always say that you have to come out singing or playing an instrument. And so I did both of those things and, as initially I was learning while I was playing for the congregation, for our little youth group, and so if you could sing in the Ki Sea, then we were, we had something to go with. [00:10:09] Tommy Thomas: I wasn't aware of your team sports background. What do you think you brought out of team sports that's helped you in life?  [00:10:16] Lisa Cummins: I think it's perseverance. I think it's working hard, preparing and I had fun doing that. And so I think enjoying, having fun building relationships and the people. And I think the other thing is that  it's okay to lose, on some teams we had stellar years and others, it was great if we won one game for the season. But it was okay. It was okay to lose, just keep going on. Which, as I say that to you, it's not something I've ever articulated previously, but I know in this day and age as we work with youth, there's a high level of anxiety that's unhealthy. And I'm just wondering how much that has to do with the culture of striving to win and be the best and not being okay with losing and not being the best.  [00:11:14] Tommy Thomas: I think that's something all of us wrestle with. Yeah. I interviewed one of your peers at some level, Christin McClave a couple weeks ago and she talked about how we were creating a culture of always being evaluated and getting this checklist for getting better and better. And she had an interesting thought that she accredited the venture capital world with experimentation. Maybe not failure but the will to do it, and by definition, experimentation means all of them won't work. [00:11:45] Lisa Cummins: No, I think that's important, obviously there are boundaries on all of that. I think for me, the ability to, the willingness and ability to experiment is really based on trust of relationships. Because character matters. Is it somebody who's going to  just get up and quit? Or is it somebody who's going to stay and work at it? And I think that matters. And I know there's a lot of discussion in our country around race and those sorts of things, and that's not something I focus on often, but it is prevalent, and I think, for example, me growing up where I did, I never heard of InterVarsity until I was 35 years old. I never heard of Young Life until I was 30, until I moved to Washington, right? And so, I did. So that's just an example of the limitation, resources and access. And as a result, relationships that I could trust and would trust me, that would allow me to venture. Wow. That's another podcast by itself, isn't it? [00:12:48] Tommy Thomas: Let's go back to your banking career. What I know about you from just what people that have told me about you, I would never put banking and Lisa in the same and probably not even service in Washington DC relative to the entrepreneurial, but let's go back to your banking days. What do you remember about your first time you had to manage people?  [00:13:10] Lisa Cummins:  It was interesting. I had my role and  that's another whole story by itself, but it was just, there's no question that God had directed my paths, my path into the role that I ended up having. I guess I didn't manage folks until maybe five years into that role. Okay, five to seven years into that role. But I will say prior to that, I wasn't managing folks, but there was a big, large team of people who had an indirect dotted line to me. So, I managed what was called community investment for the bank. And that was the statement underlying that there was an affirmative obligation of the bank to serve the needs of the credit needs of the community. And our bank and other banks during that time, were willing to take deposits from anywhere they would come. Including churches, but they weren't willing to make loans to those same communities or churches. And so there was a law that was enacted in the seventies that said, banks need to do something different about that. And when I came into banking there were a lot of consequences for not doing well in that area. So as a result, the bank had made a commitment that all of the areas of the bank would be more engaged and take more initiative and have affirmative action, if you will, of looking at opportunities for these areas. That previously had been what's called redlined, which was specifically, there were maps on the wall that said that instead of an X, they'd cover it with, surround it with a red line and cover it in and say, no, we're not going there. And so I had the director of mortgage banking, the director of consumer lending, the director of commercial lending, director of real estate, director of HR, part of their performance evaluation included a component of how did you do with community investment? And it gave me a lot of leverage as a 25-year-old going into the bank where everybody else was 10 to 15 years older than me and majority male. And so that was a leadership experience, but different than the traditional people reporting to me. Again, five, seven years later, I did have a team of people reporting to me, and it was interesting as well because I was given this team and within three months found out one of the key leads was becoming inebriated on the job. Another was taking afternoons with a bank credit card and going to a hotel on a daily basis, on a weekly basis. So I had challenges that were given to me. But my approach has always been just to be honest, to be as transparent as I can and to be understanding, to listen but also recognize and communicate their expectations. +++++++++++++++++++   [00:16:05] Tommy Thomas: Successful people are asked all the time, what makes you so successful? I'd like to frame it this way. What's a factor that's helped you succeed that most people on the outside probably wouldn't recognize or realize?  [00:16:19] Lisa Cummins: I'm not sure if it would be recognized or not. But I think early on and particularly when I moved to Washington DC after the banking career a pastor said, Lisa,  make sure that you know that this is what you're supposed to do, that you feel this is what you're supposed to do, because that's what's going to sustain you through the challenges. And I think that has been the case for me, Tom. I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And so, it's a calling, right? It's a calling. And I think in banking I entered it because I needed a job. But I think it wasn't too long after a couple years where I realized this is where I'm supposed to be. And recognizing that it was part of an orchestrated plan that the Lord had for me that I could not have ever orchestrated. But things came into place, not by coincidence, but by God's hand.  [00:17:15] Tommy Thomas: Going back to that first team, it sounds like you might have had to do some hiring and firing on that inherited team. When you think about hiring today, what's the most important quality you're looking for? [00:17:26] Lisa Cummins: I've evolved in this and maybe to where everybody else is, but I think character is a big piece of everything. Character's going to tell me about the experiences, the skills you say you have are accurate or not. True character's going to tell me how much responsibility I can give to someone. The challenge is character's hard to measure on the application, right? And what we try to do is really make sure that when we're hiring, not make sure, but we try to emphasize hiring among communities that we already know and that already know what we're about. Doesn't always work well, but there's a higher probability that someone's going to be able to fulfill what we're needing, and at the same time fulfill what they're calling and purpose is. We have had to terminate folks. And that's never easy. But what we try to do is be very clear about expectations. We try to give folks an opportunity to remedy whatever is the shortfall. Obviously, that's an issue. Depends on the severity of the situation or the factors that are impacted by underperformance or non-performance or misjudgment, whatever it might be. But we do try to give folks an opportunity to remedy the situation. And we try to provide them with the tools that allow that, in some cases that what works and also let me add, find another position. Particularly if they're a person that is a great character, but just doesn't have the skillset. Is there another way we can work with this individual? So, we try every option we can to allow an individual to flourish and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But that's the hard part and that's the cost of being in.  [00:19:19] Tommy Thomas: Who's been the most influential mentor in your life? [00:19:24] Lisa Cummins: I didn't come from a culture that had one individual or specific individuals that had a designation of mentor. That was not something I understood. But I would say that in different phases of my life, I've had different folks who have influenced me. Obviously, I have my grandparents and my parents who were models of service. When I went to the church that I grew up with, there was, we call them the sisters of the church, who were there faithfully when we needed to do fundraising to send youth to camp. They were making tamales on Friday night, and were bringing their big pots to be able to sell those as a fundraiser. We had men of the church who were hardworking and after their regular day of construction, they'd come and work on the building of the church. Also had the Sunday school teacher who was faithful. I still remember her name, Virginia Faithful, showed up every Sunday morning and cared about us. So that was that phase. I think as I've grown into professional life and ministry and leading an organization; I think there are various people who have had influence in my life. Some of them I know and they're good friends, and some of them I've read about, right? And so, I don't think there's any one source, but I've benefited from multiple sources of folks that I can learn from. [00:20:46] Tommy Thomas: It sounds like you've had both the formal and informal - probably more informal mentoring than classical.  [00:20:51] Lisa Cummins: Yeah. That's right. Again, that wasn't part of my culture, but I remember about 10 years ago, a young woman called me and said, I'd like for you to be my mentor, and I really didn't know her. And I was like, okay. I'm not sure what that looks like. And she said, can we meet next week? Can we meet next month? And kept it on. And I'm like, oh, okay.  I wasn't as forward to be able to do that. And I didn't know what that looked like.  Yeah. So, it was very much informal.  [00:21:21] Tommy Thomas: I want you to think about some of the teams you've led.   What's been the key to successful team leadership?  [00:21:30] Lisa Cummins: At least for me I work really hard to make sure every voice is heard for several reasons. One, I want folks to be able to take ownership of whatever it is that we're working on. I don't want to be the one leader. I think that I am probably too trusting. I know I'm too trusting in some places that has bitten me. But I really try to work at a personal level, building trust, building relationships, having people reminding ourselves that we're on the same team and reminding ourselves of what our common goals are. I try to have fun in the process of that and really celebrate the wins and want to talk about the places where we didn't win, where we didn't achieve what we wanted to. And we've had some folks say let's not talk about the past. No, we've got to talk about the past, because that's how we learn. And so, I think it's a combination of factors. Things aren't always perfect. There are mistakes that are made by me and others, but there's room for that. And let's be honest and sincere with one another and reevaluate. Do we want to stay on this team and are we still committed to the same purpose? And if we are, then we can work things out.  [00:22:43] Tommy Thomas:  You and I come from probably two generations. I finished high school in 68. You finished it sounded like 82, 83. 83. And now you're leading people or bringing people into the workforce that have finished a generation later than you. What are some observations maybe if you think of your parents' generation, your generation, and the people you're seeing now? Can you draw some contrast there?  [00:23:08] Lisa Cummins: Sure. I think one of the biggest ones that we've been thinking about over the last 24 months is this idea of boundaries.  I grew up in a culture where there were no boundaries in terms of work life, that sort of thing. Partly because we were in poverty, so you've got to do whatever you have to do to make ends meet, right? And many people are still in that situation. However, I would say that as folks have a more of a mixture of cultures, the young folks that we've been hiring, they are very intentional about drawing boundaries so that their work doesn't end up being seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We work with a lot of faith-based organizations and we've had many talks with our pastors and some of whom have said, yeah. And some had it as a badge of nobility that they haven't taken a vacation in 20 years. We said that's not actually a good thing. And so, we're learning, my generation, we're learning from the younger generation about what it means to have more balance, what mental health means. That just has not been part of our vocabulary. So I'm thankful for that because I think that is important for sustainability and the important things to practice, important things to teach and learn as well. So I think that's the biggest piece. And the other is that, particularly because a lot of our work requires either understanding of the Hispanic culture, and or speaking Spanish. We've just got some amazing people who are the younger generation who are very interested in issues of helping their neighbor and really, I think not leaving parts of scripture out. Again, we're not faith-based authorization, but we work with ministries and our people have a desire to do that. So we really are, the younger generation is holding us accountable to what we say we believe biblically and are smart about trying to develop long-term solutions. And I think again, holding a line from a perspective of what is for us as individuals and for the communities that we're serving. So, there's a lot to learn there, for sure.  [00:25:39] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. So go back to the team thing for a minute. What's the most ambitious project you've ever tackled and how did you bring the troops to rally?  [00:25:48] Lisa Cummins: Wow. One of the things that we do a lot, we've done a lot of ambitious projects, Tommy, and I think that by God's grace we've been able to see some, see fruit in some cases, it's not all the fruit we'd want to see but I think we also have very high expectations of ourselves. We launched a program in 2014 that was trying to respond to the unaccompanied children who were coming to our border, desperate for help - in desperate need. And we ended up in three months standing up four or five shelters that provided housing for these children, 24/7 care, and hired 200 people in that period of time. And that was in 2014. We were continuing that work and have grown to other projects since. But I think that when you know you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, and that, for me, I know that this is more than just about me. I can have confidence that God's got my back. Yep. God's got my back. Again, I'm sorry. I'm not sure how faith oriented your audience is, but this is hard. It's hard for me not to include faith in my story.  [00:27:14] Tommy Thomas: No, sure. I think a lot of my people, given that's where I've made my living over the past 35 years, I think we do have a probably a primary faith-based group. Okay. But probably not entirely. So you be yourself.  [00:27:28] Lisa Cummins: Thank you. Yeah. And in our work, we try to demonstrate our faith by our actions. And so, I have a project that we're working on now that's going to be a big lift. And I don't often step back and say, oh, out of fear this one has caused me a little trepidation. So I'm having to wrestle with that and figure out what that's about and what's a smart way to go into this. But most of our work, Tommy we're first to do it, and so there's not a lot of, given our circumstances, given the communities we're working with, there's not a lot of track records. We're not duplicating what somebody else is doing. We might be taking parts of what others are doing and replicating that to fit in the context of what we're working in, and the resources that we have or don't have. But yeah, we've done a lot of ambitious things. When I started Urban Strategies, I did not have a goal of growing. I was just trying to do what God called me to do. But I realized that to be a steward, a good steward of what the Lord has, the opportunities the Lord was giving me, we needed to bring other people on the team. So today we have 500 people on the Urban Strategies team. And that's not something I ever planned on. I would probably have been frightened about it had you told me that would be the case – because big is not necessarily better. So that's not what I'm going for.  +++++++++++++++++++++= Join us next week when we continue this conversation with Lisa. In that conversation, we will dig deeper into her work with Urban Strategies. We'll also discuss what she has learned about nonprofit board service by serving on the boards of organizations, such as World Vision, and the Christian community.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Urban Strategies   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Lisa Trevino Cummin's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Christin McClave: The boards that I've been on that have been very well-functioning from a nonprofit standpoint, really do have a nice balance of people who are still in industry. People who are very well versed in audit and finance and can pick out what might not look right on the financials or where things are, could potentially go wrong in the future if they're not managed properly. [00:00:27] Tommy Thomas: This week we're continuing the conversation with Christin McClave that we began in Episode 81. In that conversation, Christin shared her leadership journey from Johnson and Johnson to Cardona Industries, an aftermarket business and the automotive sector that her father and grandfather started. Christen has a lot of board governance experience in both the private and nonprofit sectors.  Let's pick up on that conversation.  +++++++++++++++++++ Let's go to board service. You are a busy lady, with a family and a business. When did your first nonprofit board show up? Or maybe, how did it show up?  [00:01:08] Christin McClave: My first nonprofit board experience actually came from an organization I was a part of in my high school years. I was a part of a teen missions organization. I went on a couple missions trips with this organization and then, eventually, I stayed in loose communication with them. And then it was, a friend of a friend. And they really wanted to find someone who had actually participated in some of their programs. And it's just, it's really a word-of-mouth thing at that point, and that was a much smaller nonprofit. And it was a really wonderful organization. I learned a ton and I was able to actually have a few mentors on that board helping me through the process and learning about governance and what needs to be in place, maybe what wasn't in place there. And how to see things in, as a non-profit board member. That was a really awesome learning experience for me. And then subsequently, one of my mentors on that board eventually left, and then he asked me to put my name in the process for the next nonprofit board, which was much larger at that point. And I ended up joining that board. So, it's a cycle and a follow on. If you're doing good things and bringing good value to the board you're on and providing feedback and good support and connections, it'll pay off to the next one and the next one.  [00:02:48] Tommy Thomas:   Peter Drucker has been attributed to have said a lot of things. I'm not sure if we could have talked to Dr. Drucker about what all he did say, but one person said that Dr. Drucker said there's one thing all boards have in common. They do not function. Based on your experience what might make that truth, if it's true?  [00:03:05] Christin McClave: I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, these systems that we try to put in place and we expect perfection from them. We're all imperfect people coming to the table. And we're all human and those structures are very rigid and there's a lot of, I'll say literature, books, there's magazines, everything out there. I was just reading the Director and Boards magazine. There's all of these best practices that we're supposed to have in place. And the reality is there's cultural things that happen. There's crises that come into play. There are unforeseen circumstances, if you're working with a global nonprofit board, you have all kinds of economic and cultural factors that you have no control over. And you have these great board agendas and these wonderful committees and you're just constantly trying to make it easy. And at the end of the day there's always something. We live in an imperfect world and we're all imperfect people. And the human dynamics of coming together with a lot and especially now we're also wanting more diversity of, thought and diversity of, race and gender and background coming to the table together. It's going to get even more and more complicated because we're having to come from different perspectives. The discourse has to be more robust about challenging what the agenda is or what's on the table, or what things are important. And then, layer on top of that, you have a management team, right? And you've got these two disparate systems coming together in a collision, at a board meeting, right? And as much as you'd like to think we're partners with the management team and at the same time, that's not always your role. Your role is also to be an oversight to what's happening in the organization. And there is some tension between, if there's tension on the management team, how do they function together?   It's great to have a highly functioning, highly performing executive team, but we all know that doesn't always happen and they're coming into the room and then you have this board who have varying degrees of, you're always rolling people on and off a board. So, it's big. A wonderful and a challenging collision of personalities. And then we have this, like I said, this system and this equation of what, the best practices of boards should and, shouldn't be. I think I agree with Peter Drucker there and that, it'll never be perfect and we'll always have our dysfunction. But we can all come to the table with some type of growth mindset and openness and humility. Then I think we can get a lot of things done.  [00:06:03] Tommy Thomas: I've been in this business a long time and I've worked with probably 300-400 boards, over the last 30 years. And if I look at them, I will say a lot of the time they're, they'd be males a lot of the time.  They might be closer to my age than your age.  And now things are changing. So, what are you seeing, or maybe what are you doing to lower the mean age on a board and to maybe bring more gender and ethnic diversity?  [00:06:32] Christin McClave: So, I think we see a lot of changes in the general demographics, right?  As our society and culture are changing. The positive thing is there's so much more diversity coming up through the leadership ranks. And I think, the traditional way that we've, I'll say we, because I've done it myself as well, when we've needed a new board member on a board I'm on, I instantly think about who have I worked with before? Who's like me, who thinks like me, who would be easy to plug and play into this board that I'm on? And so that's been our traditional way of pipelining onto boards. Let's find people who we know and who we know could be very quickly successful and contribute value to this board. I think what we've learned over the last couple years is that it doesn't necessarily bring diversity to these boards that we are trying to diversify. And we've seen the pressure coming from the public sector the SEC, not quite regulations, but suggestions that we need more, a certain percentage of diversity on the public boards. And there's a lot of pressure in the market for that. And then that has trickled down its way to nonprofits and to the private sector. So, everyone is looking to diversify their boards at this point. And I think, a key piece of the job requirements that we have in the past always assumed on larger boards, I'll say. And most boards in general, everybody's wanted, okay you need to have a CEO or CFO or a C level executive. But preferably a CEO or CFO who's been in the chair before. And I've had people say that to me as well, that's what they're looking for. And I think we know just from sheer data that a lot of women and diverse candidates in general haven't had those opportunities. And in the past, and we are trying, we are definitely developing that pipeline now and being very much more intentional. But I think like through the past few years and now looking at the talent market being as hot as it is and the demand for diverse talent we have, we are at the place we need to take a look at those very narrow criteria that we've, we've said, oh, you have to be a C-level executive to be on a board and to be able to contribute value. And I think, now I've seen a lot more being written, a lot more being talked about a lot more, diversity coming onto boards where I'm reading someone's background and I'm like, wow, that is so cool. Maybe 10 years ago that person wouldn't have been chosen for that very significant board seat. So I think it's really just that we've opened up our criteria and have opened up our thought process and how we see people's experiences. We're looking at people's resumes really differently these days. We even, from an HR perspective internally, when we're screening candidates. We took the requirement of having a college degree off of our requirements, probably, about 10 years ago, which was a little bit ahead of our time, but it just opened up our talent pool and we realized there's a lot of people out there that may not have a bachelor's degree but are way more experienced with their life and work experience that we were not being able to tap into because we had that very strict requirement. So I think we're seeing that across the board at all levels, including at the board level. +++++++++++++++++   [00:10:23] Tommy Thomas: A few episodes back a guy emailed me after the episode and he talked about that he was on a startup nonprofit, and he had some questions. He said, maybe you could do a whole episode on startup nonprofits. And I hadn't done that yet, but I have asked people like you the question. If you were approached by a friend about doing a startup on a nonprofit, what are some questions you would ask? What kind of counsel are you giving that person?  And this may go over to the board piece too, because I think boards are so critical. [00:10:56] Christin McClave: Yeah. That is one of the key questions I would be asking. And maybe it's, at a startup stage, it's not a super formal board. That word board we'll put in air quotes because, it's you're not paying anybody. You're not, and in a nonprofit, you're not paying anybody to be on the board anyway. And you really need maybe more, something more like a sounding board and an advisory, an informal advisory council, if you will, that is able to bring some experience, some strategy, help you see what's down the road. The challenges, help you figure out, really the funding model and you know how you're going to approach that because that is your primary driver in any type of startup nonprofit. You really have to have the ability to raise money in a different sort of a way. It's not the traditional, you get a pitch deck with the in and you go into a Shark Tank environment and you present to all kinds of funding sources. This is a whole different thing because you have this passion, this problem you want to solve, and you're trying to engage people in that mission with you. And then hopefully they're going to commit some donations and fundraising into that process. So I think having that advisory function in some way is really important.  And in more established nonprofits, they're meeting quarterly, but I think in this case you'd probably want to have someone on speed dial for different things, who's your mentor, your coach, and then having some type of advisory, council or loose board that you meet, like probably monthly to help you stay on track, build out your strategy, and support you, even from a, like I said, mentorship and coaching standpoint. [00:12:56] Tommy Thomas: You're probably not old enough to remember the Enron scandal, but I certainly would be and certainly the private sector took a lot of heat and justifiably how do you get your fellow board members to ask tough financial questions? [00:13:07] Christin McClave: Yeah. That is a challenge. In the nonprofit space, it's more of a challenge on those boards because people do come to those boards because of the mission, because of the passion they have for the mission. And if you're on certain boards that you know are, have a Christian focus or some type of religious focus, you want to have some percentage of the board coming from either ministry, and then the other part of the board is coming from the business perspective. That seems to be a really nice balance actually. I've enjoyed being on nonprofit boards who have a good balance of those two things. Everybody needs to be passionate about the mission, but then on the for-profit board side, you tend to get people who are heavily weighted to the financial side. You spend a lot of time with your audit committee chair. You spend time with the auditors, you're spending a higher percentage of time on the financials and the strategy and the metrics and much less time on the culture and the people strategy and which, we can talk another time, about how that's probably, an imbalance and needs to be more balanced on the for-profit side. I think it's really key to have the right balance of people coming from the for-profit sector and also people with good finance background who know how to dig into the numbers and know how to highlight things that could be potential issues going down the road. And the boards that I've been on that have been very well-functioning from a nonprofit standpoint, really do have a nice balance of people who are still in industry. People who are very well versed in audit and finance and can pick out what might not look right on the financials or where things are, could potentially go wrong in the future if they're not managed properly. The for-profit sector doesn't really have, as I haven't experienced that. They tend to have a much deeper focus on the financials and really, that diversity that we talked about earlier is also important, to make sure you don't have a bunch of, a bunch of the same type of people on your board who are not willing to bring up the financial issues that they see and they're willing to speak up and challenge. You want to make sure that diversity of thought is there and the ability to bring things up and not just go into group think on how things are moving.  [00:15:59] Tommy Thomas: I'd like you to respond to this quote: “You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant - someone who will force people to think a little differently.  That's what a good board does”.  [00:16:10] Christin McClave: Yes. Wow. A pleasant irritant. I really like that a lot. And I will aspire to that title because I think sometimes with my age, and I'll say I'm 46, but on a lot of the boards that I'm on, I tend to be on the younger side. It's something that I can fall into, okay, I'm here and I don't have as much to bring to the table that everybody else does, but I really do need to speak up and be that pleasant irritant on the board and ask the questions. They asked me to be on the board because I'm coming from a different perspective. So, I think it's really important. We actually had a role on one of our nonprofit boards. And this came to be after we had experienced a crisis together as a board and got through it and we realized we had gone into that group to the point where we let something occur and we didn't challenge it. We didn't challenge the management team like we should have as a board. So, after that crisis subsided, we came together and said,  Hey, we need a loyal skeptic. Every single board meeting we have, someone who is going to be given the hat of loyal skeptic and, which sounds like, similar words, you said pleasant irritant. So yeah, and that really was an interesting experience. When I had to take on that role you really put that hat on, and it changes your thinking. And we had moments in the board agenda where we would say, okay what does the skeptic have to say about this? And we wanted to make sure we were getting the alternative position to what we were all agreeing to. [00:18:03] Tommy Thomas: I asked Dr. Linda Livingstone, the President at Baylor that question, and I asked her, did you need to appoint one? And she says, probably not. They generally show up.  [00:18:13] Christin McClave: Yeah. I think if you start calling attention to the fact that we want and we celebrate and we need to have some skeptics and some different points of view, we celebrate that. I don't think you necessarily have to put the hat on someone. You just have to keep on a regular basis saying, are we getting, what's the alternative point of view here? What's the skeptic going to say? And I think we can all do that in our board context.  ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:18:42] Tommy Thomas: Let's close out with maybe a couple of comments about the board chair because that's a critical role in nonprofits. So give me some words and phrases that would describe the best board chair or chairs that you've observed in nonprofits.  [00:18:57] Christin McClave: So, composed, I'm thinking of all the board chairs that I've been a part of, I've been a part of composed, professional, empathetic, and humble yet still very organized. And they're the ones that keep us going and keep us on track. And at the same time, they're very savvy with understanding the dynamics of the management team, the CEO, the relationship with the CEO and the relationship to the board. And they are really integral to that working well. They spend time with the CEO offline. They potentially spend time with the leadership team and the CEO. It's an incredibly dedicated role that the chairs that I've been blessed to be under as a board member have been just remarkable in their ability to balance all the stakeholders. The stakeholders in the room balance all of those very complicated systems that we talked about earlier. Bringing them all into one room and being even, you could say it, a conductor of an orchestra in a way. I've seen them and at the same time, the chairs of nonprofits, like I said, really must be committed, passionate about the work that's being done in that nonprofit. I have experienced one board where the chair was really doing it out of, I don't want to say obligation, but it was like, okay I'm trying to help this organization. I'm trying to help this CEO. But maybe that person's personal commitment wasn't really so passionate about the actual work that we were doing and that's needed at some points like that, we needed some structure and some discipline on that board. So that was a good thing for a short time or an interim time. But the ones that I've seen to be very effective have been passionate about the work, really passionate about supporting the CEO and the management team, and giving them the support from the board they need. And then at the same time, like I said, bringing that skeptic voice and making sure that voice is heard in the meetings is really important. So there's a level of humility and then a level of organization and professionalism that has just been really important to see, especially when you have large nonprofit boards. These boards tend to get over 15 people and they get to 20-25, and that's a whole other level of orchestration that a chair has to have to be involved in.  And it's a definite skill. It's really amazing when you see it working.  +++++++++++++++++++++ Our guest next week will be Lisa Trevino Cummings. Lisa started her career with Bank of America and spent 12 years there before leaving to head Hispanic outreach efforts for The White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In 2003, she started Urban Strategies – a social enterprise with a mission to connect and resource community and faith-based organizations in hard-to-reach communities.  [00:22:26] Lisa Cummings: I grew up in a culture where there were no boundaries in terms of work life, that sort of thing. Partly because we were in poverty, so you've got to do whatever you got to do to make ends meet, right? And many people are still in that situation. However, I would say that as folks have a more of a mixture of cultures, the young folks that we've been hiring, they are very intentional about drawing boundaries so that their work doesn't end up being, seven days a week, 24 hours a day.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Christin McClave's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Jerry White: The best lesson that I have learned is that I need to accept responsibility for what I do, to admit when I need help and to be absolutely of high integrity and faithfulness in carrying out what I say I will do. The second thing that I would say was that people are my most important asset. +++++++++++++++++ Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Jerry White, The President Emeritus for The Navigators International. Jerry enjoyed a distinguished career in the United States Air Force, starting out in mission control during the very early days of the American space program. He retired from the Air Force as a two-star general.  I must confess that I was a bit nervous about interviewing Jerry. Aside from his distinguished military career, he's an accomplished writer and is very prominent in Christian ministry circles. I even went so far as to ask Doug Nuenke, a previous podcast guest and close friend of Jerry's to be my co-host for the episode.  But on the day of the recording, Doug had a family emergency and had to bow out. In the end, it turned out to be a wonderful experience for me. Jerry was a great guest, very genuine and transparent. Let's pick up the conversation.  [00:01:24] Tommy Thomas: Before we get too deep into your professional career, take me back a little bit to your upbringing and your childhood. What was that like?  [00:01:31] Jerry White: Let me just summarize that for you. And I'm headed back there within the next day or two because a cousin just died and I'll be performing a memorial service. I grew up in a little town in Iowa by the name of Garden City, 100 people, a farm community north of Ames, just off I-35. My mother had me when she was 17, my father divorced her, abandoned us when I was an infant. So I was raised in that little Norwegian farm community by my mother and my grandfather, and had a wonderful upbringing. I still go back there, and I know all the families and they know us. And then that, of course was a disaster for my mother. What was a disaster for me is at age eight, my mother remarried, and we got in the car with a new stepfather whom I did not really know at all, and headed west for Spokane, Washington, leaving behind everything that I knew and loved and cared for. And I was one upset and anxious kid. And I should say that my stepfather was a wonderful person. I have absolutely zero negative to say about him. He was stuck with us as a new father with a spoiled young eight-year-old. We got to Spokane, Washington, and it was in that context that a group of businessmen in post-World War for our country and the USA veterans were coming back and we had a community center there, and we were in a neighborhood where there was no church. And he and a group of business guys, ordinary men, started a Sunday school. And I started going to that and really started thinking through and being confronted with who Jesus was and the gospel. And so, at about age 11, I made a personal commitment to Christ. And this man, Bob Sheffler, was my mentor for his entire life. He guided me through those early years. My parents did not know the Lord and they later came to faith, and he didn't know that he was discipling, but he was discipling me. And when I went off after high school, by the way, having been very involved in Youth for Christ and my church and many other things, off to study electrical engineering, it was Bob that drove me across the state of Washington to Seattle at the University of Washington, told me where to live, and dropped me off. And it was there that I met The Navigators. My first roommate had been led to Christ by The Navigators and he started to disciple me, teach me how to have a quiet time, scripture, memory, and study the Bible. And so that was my early childhood. And it was traumatic. It was not easy. And but God stepped in and really changed my life, and I made Lordship commitments and ended up at a university in touch with The Navigators.  Though, The Navigators weren't really very big then. [00:04:47] Tommy Thomas: So how did you choose electrical engineering?  [00:04:50] Jerry White: I was pretty good at math and none of my family really had gone to university and so I just fell into it. I said that's one of the more difficult subjects and I'm pretty good in mathematics. So, when I signed up, I signed up for electrical engineering. I didn't know hardly anything about it, to be honest with you. And so that's how I ended up there. And I struggled through, I made it, I didn't know whether I was smart or whether I wasn't, and stayed with electrical engineering and ended up getting a bachelor's degree in it. [00:05:27] Tommy Thomas: I was the same way. I studied EE and it was a hard road for me. It was a hard way to go to college.  [00:05:32] Jerry White: Yeah, it was. We had a whole bunch of navy veterans who were electronic technicians and all the labs I would go into, I didn't know what end was up, and they just did it just like this. They knew everything and I was just struggling to figure out what end was up. And I worked my way through college. I did not have any scholarships of any sort. And so, it was a hard time, but it was also a time of tremendous growth spiritually. And it was there that I met Mary and we were married before our senior year in college, and she went to work for Boeing Aircraft Company, dropped out of school and I doubled up to 21, 22 and 23 hours and just forced my way through that last year of school. And on the day I graduated, I was commissioned in the Air Force and we jumped in the car and headed into the United States Air Force. +++++++++++++++++   [00:06:31] Tommy Thomas: So, when you went into the Air Force, were you thinking it would be a career at that point?  [00:06:36] Jerry White: No, everybody had to serve in the universal draft. I went through the Air Force, ROTC, and went into pilot training. And I was just going to serve. I had no idea, Tommy, whether I'd be a career or not because Boeing Aircraft Company had a job waiting for me. And so, I figured I'd serve whatever time I need to serve and probably end up coming back to Seattle. But it didn't go the way I planned. I flew for a year and was just near the end of pilot training. And though I didn't know it, they needed to get rid of about a third of the pilot training class. And never having failed at any flights or anything, I had one not too good of a ride in formation jet and went up and took the next ride and the instructor landed and he said, Well White, you can fly two ship jet formation. Okay, but I don't think you're gonna be able to fly four ship formation, and within three days I was out of pilot training. Done. No recourse. So, we said, what in the world is going on? I'd never failed at anything.  And so, we prayed and said just told the Air Force, send us anywhere you want. Just give me an engineering job somewhere. And with absolutely no hint from me or any input from anybody that I know, the Air Force sent me to Cape Canaveral in the New American Space Program. Tommy, I didn't even know who it was . And I became a mission controller, got right smack in the middle of all of the new stuff that the Air Force was doing. The man flights, the Mercurys, the Geminis, Atlas, Titan, Polaris, you name it. And every conceivable kind of rocket. And in that I got a new glimpse of the future. [00:08:35] Tommy Thomas: What do you remember about your first management job?  [00:08:39] Jerry White:  The first management job was in the Air Force. I was one of six mission controllers, and we had to manage all the assets on the Atlantic missile range for all of the contractors and projects that were going on at the time. And the first thing I remember is how do you please everybody when you can't give everybody what they want? And so, I would put together each week a plan for the entire missile range, for all the tests, all the launches, all the ground tests, and then walk into a session of 50 contractors at each other's throats and mine for vying for time on the range. And it really taught me how to navigate some hard waters. And it taught me that I needed to know what I was doing. And so it was a good time. It wasn't classically a management job because I wasn't in charge of anybody, but I was in charge of assets and had to work with people over whom I had no authority. And that was probably the best thing for me. [00:09:53] Tommy Thomas:  I was going to say you may not have had the authority, but you had to have the influence.  [00:09:58] Jerry White:  I did have authority in the sense that I could say no to anything when I worked as a mission controller, if I had to make decisions related to the range and the tests and with people who were far outranked me. Because when you're in the spot, you have the authority. [00:10:17] Tommy Thomas: You're the third general officer that I've had the privilege to interview. One of them, Jack Briggs at the Springs Rescue Mission, of course. And I don't know that you'd ever have met Mark McQueen. He was a two-star in the army.  He's a city manager at Panama City now. And he stepped into his job as city manager 10 days before Hurricane Michael hit Panama City. [00:10:36] Jerry White:  Oh my goodness.  [00:10:38] Tommy Thomas: That was a baptism by fire for him. I asked both of these guys the question,  What's the most important lesson you learned in the military that you've carried forward? [00:10:48] Jerry White:   The best lesson that I have learned is that I need to accept responsibility for what I do, to admit when I need help and to be absolutely of high integrity and faithfulness in carrying out what I say I will do. I'd say that was the key thing that I learned. The second thing that I would say was that people are my most important asset. Nothing happens without people. I also learned that even though you're in an authoritarian environment in the military you don't misuse your authority. You don't lord it over anybody, but everybody. The colonels and generals who worked for me, I told them, I said, ladies and gentlemen, we're overhead. We don't fix airplanes. We don't fly them. We don't create them. Our job is totally to clear the way so that the people really doing the work can actually do the work out in the field. I learned that by the school of hard knocks in terms of making a lot of mistakes and watching some pretty good people who were leaders. [00:12:04] Tommy Thomas: I want to ask you a second chances question. I've got some good responses from this. Richard Paul Evans, a novelist, said, “Sometimes the greatest hope in our life is just a second chance to do what we should have done right the first time.” And I'm sure you've had the opportunity in the past to make that kind of decision. What goes into your mind and heart when you're thinking about giving somebody and senior leadership a second chance for something fairly egregious?  [00:12:33] Jerry White:   If you have something fairly egregious it depends on several things. One is moral, the second is legal, and the third is judgment. In other words, they just made a mistake. The moral and the legal. You have to abide by the policies in place and you need to hold people accountable. And I've had that both in The Navigators as well as in the military, but when a person's performance is not up to par, then well, what I ask them, I said, okay, here is my highest value. My highest value is if you tell me you're going to do something, then I expect you to do it. And if you can't do it, I want you to tell me. And if you need help, please ask. But please do not tell me that you're going to do something and then not do it. So, I hold them accountable and then if they, nobody is perfect.  I've had people who didn't do all that I wanted them to do, and I have to discern whether it's an issue of competence, character, or some other thing that they just did not know what to do. But the basic thing is not to wait until they fail. In other words, to walk with your subordinates, if you want to call it that, as they're going through the process. So both of you can catch it if it isn't going the right direction. And in that regard, particularly in The Navigators, which is a volunteer organization, you really want to give people a challenge. But I still remember so many challenges I had that I did not have a clue what to do and had to get lots of help. And I made lots of mistakes and people were very tolerant of me. Didn't make any egregious mistakes, but ones that were enough to know that I wasn't performing as well as I could have.  ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:14:40] Tommy Thomas: Let me go to maybe a deeper side of that, and let's think about dangerous behaviors that you've seen that derail leader's careers. The biggest thing that derails leaders' careers is not understanding themselves and their own gifts and limitations. But the worst is when they have a moral failure. And I don't necessarily mean sexually moral, a moral failure in terms of integrity and judgment. [00:14:47] Jerry White:  The biggest thing that derails leaders' careers is not understanding themselves and their own gifts and limitations. But the worst is when they have a moral failure. And I don't necessarily mean sexually moral, a moral failure in terms of integrity and judgment. The thing I look for in a leader is that they're a learner. That they know what they know. They know what they don't know, and they're always on the grow. That is, they are learning to develop themselves and they don't make excuses. When they don't do quite well, they take the responsibility rather than trying to cover up for themselves.  Anybody who will admit that they did something wrong and said, I need to learn how to do that better, I've got a lot of hope for that person because then they'll grow, they'll continue to engage. People gave me second chances. People took a risk with me on many things. And put their own careers on the line instead of just saying, oh it's too much of a risk. And I've had several things where that's happened. I remember one situation, I was going over into a war zone in a critical area of Croatia, and there were some questions at the Pentagon as to why I was doing this.  And I had a reason. And the latter says, if Jerry says it's important, we'll back him and let me go. Because they trusted me.  [00:16:23] Tommy Thomas: Let's change over to mentors for a minute. You mentioned the guy early in your life that gave you the road to the University of Washington and helps you out there.  Who else has been an influential mentor to you? [00:16:32] Jerry White: There were several people. This was a businessman, Bob Sheffler, who was my early mentor. Then in the Air Force when I failed out of pilot training, there was an instructor pilot by the name of Bill Waldrip. He became very significant in leadership in the Officers Christian Fellowship. And Bill and Doris really were our friends, and he was a mentor who was always there. We worked together through the years, both with The Navs and with Officers Christian Fellowship (OCF) and I would ask him for council when I was going to leave the Air Force and come full-time with The Navigators. Bill is one of the men that I called and asked for counsel. I had a pastor back in Dayton, Ohio, who was a wonderful man, and he really believed in us. Here we were just young. Officers, little kids. And he believed in us and he encouraged us. And then later on Loren Sanny, the former president of the Navigators and Leroy Eims, one of our key early leaders in The Navigators, all were wonderful mentors to me. And whether it was intentional mentoring, I don't know, but what they did is they gave me opportunities and they gave me counsel and they interacted with me. And I would listen to them very carefully as to their teaching and learn from them. Each of these people were very different. I don't know if any of them thought, oh, I'm mentoring Jerry. They were just giving their life to me at a point in time in my life when I needed them.  [00:18:13] Tommy Thomas: Do you think the most mentoring that you've done, has it been intentional, or do you think you just showed up? [00:18:19] Jerry White: Tommy, in these last years has been more intentional because through the Lausanne Movement and through other places people have asked me to mentor them and I make a difference between discipling. Of course, when you're doing like we do in The Navigators, it's one-on-one discipling, not exactly mentoring. That's helping people with spiritual growth, getting the going in their lives. Then we have what I call coaching. And coaching is where somebody really wants you to help. Send in the place, give guidance as they do it. But mentoring for me, working on their agenda and with a few people I'm mentoring right now I say, what do you want to learn? Where can I help you? What kinds of issues do you have? I have one man in Hawaii who calls me every three months and has a list of things he wants to talk about. And I go by his agenda, not by mind. Now, if I've got a young leader and perhaps someone who works for me, I'll be a bit more structured in terms of what I'll ask them to do and to coach them, to give them experiences, guided experiences and opportunities. ++++++++++++++++++   [00:19:37] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back over maybe the Air Force and or The Navigators, what's the most ambitious project you've ever tackled and how did you bring your team along?    [00:19:45] Jerry White: There were a lot of ambitious projects. Probably the most challenging was taking the responsibility for being president of The Navigators from Loren Sanny, who had been in the role for 30 years following Dawson Trotman. And the biggest project that we took on is who are The Navigators? What are we supposed to do and how should we do it? We needed to reassess the entire direction of The Navigators as we were growing by leaps and bounds internationally and in the US, and I still remember with my team trying to come up with things that we needed to do to bring these people together. And two of the attempts were wonderful attempts, but they didn't work. They were good. But they didn't work. And finally, as a team, we decided to bring the core leadership of The Navigators worldwide together in Cypress. And I'd say, okay, we've got a blank sheet of paper. Who are The Navigators? What has God called us to do and how should we do it? And God brought us through that time with an affirmation of what we call the core, our calling core vision, core values and vision. And we just did a review of that a few months ago. After 20 years. I expected it to last for 10 years, and it's lasted 20 now. It was not just me. What I did, I gave permission for the leaders to speak. Their heart. And I had a team that was a phenomenal team to help guide that along the way. That was probably the most ambitious thing I've ever undertaken. [00:21:50] Tommy Thomas: If we learn from our mistakes, why are most others so afraid to make mistakes?  [00:21:55] Jerry White: Usually it's pride and ego that we don't admit when we make mistakes. I think a big issue is that we don't understand our own limitations and who we are. And that's why I think that, as people grow in leadership, they need to assess who they are and what their needs are and what they can grow in. The one thing that keeps people from taking risks is fear. They're afraid they will fail. And if there's an atmosphere within their company, their ministry, their organization of not tolerating mistakes and failure, then you'll walk in fear. And if a leader has to have someone coming up to them every other day and asking, is this okay?  Is this okay? What must I do? That's not going to work. They've got to be willing to take risks and I have to be willing as a leader to take risks on them and to give them the reins and say, go after it. You do this. Do what is best in your own eyes, and if you need some help, let's talk about it. [00:23:12] Tommy Thomas:  What are you most excited about in life right now?  [00:23:16] Jerry White: Oh, I am most excited right now about the whole concept of the theology of work. That God calls us to our jobs, to our work, to be an engineer, to be a crane operator, to be a computer programmer, to be a manager, and to understand that God's great calling is not just to quote what we call ministry, but our ministry is our work. And the reason for that is that is where the lost people of this world are. They are the people that ordinary believers work alongside every day. And I'm very excited about that and I'm doing a lot of work with the Luanne movement and the theology of work and for our next Luanne Congress in September of next year to have upwards of 40% of the 5,000 coming out of the workplace. And besides, Tommy, the future of missions is going to be people going in their professions because we can't get into most countries that we want to go to.  ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:24:34] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to a couple of quotes before I jump over into board service some, because I want to make sure we have some time there. John Quincy Adams said, “Patience and persistence have a magical effect before which difficulties and obstacles vanish.” Any thoughts from your experience where you've seen patience and persistence work for you?  [00:24:55] Jerry White: They're two very different things. Patience is awaiting not seeing the results right away. The biggest one is persistence. When I look back over my career, I didn't think I was all that smart, but I was persistent, and I worked hard. So even when some of the most boring jobs or some of the most distasteful things, you are persistent and work through it. I have a little series of things when I say, okay, this is a good employee, someone who's competent. That as they know what to do and that they have character, obviously that's a huge one. But beyond that, they're faithful. And I will take faithfulness over the most competent person because I know that person will get the job done. The smartest guy or gal around, if they're not persistent and faithful, they will not get the job done. Everything has a deadline. And now the patience part, I've not given quite as much thought to that. But if there's patience, it's patience with people. And not usurping what they're doing and overriding them. I had to learn that early on that I, even though I could do it better than some other people, certain things I needed to let them do it. Just like your kids riding a tricycle or a bicycle, you have to let them fall. Maybe catch them when they fall, but patience in trusting them.  [00:26:43] Tommy Thomas: Somebody has compared leadership to a boat with two oars, one of the oars is people and relationships, the other is results.  Your thoughts?  [00:26:53] Jerry White: Certainly, the people are a key issue. I have to be a little careful about the results on that one. Certainly, everybody needs to have results. I would probably make the other, or goals and directions. In other words, to know where you're going. Because now do I want results? Yes, I do want results, but in so many cases we can't create the results, particularly in an organization like The Navigators or any of our Christian ministries. You can't make anything happen. The only thing you can do, Tommy, is to make an environment where something can happen and then see God miraculously work through it. But even in the secular world there is limited control over results and you have to let people do their job. And certainly, we need to have clearly defined outcomes that are adjusted quarter by quarter.  +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:28:00] Tommy Thomas: Thanks to Jerry White for a great conversation. Jerry will rejoin us in a few weeks to share leadership lessons on board governance that he has learned over the years.  In Episode 81, Christin McClave was our guest. We discussed her leadership journey from Johnson and Johnson to Cardon Industries and beyond. In addition to Christin's corporate leadership experience, she has a lot of experience serving on both private sector and nonprofit boards. Christen joins us next week to share insights on board governance.  [00:28:42] Christin McClave: The boards that I've been on that have been very well-functioning from a nonprofit standpoint, really do have a nice balance of people who are still in industry. People who are very well versed in audit and finance and can pick out what might not look right on the financials or where things are, could potentially go wrong in the future if they're not managed properly.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Jerry White is a very accomplished writer.  Most of his books can be found at NavPress (www.navpress.com).  Others at Thrift Books (thriftbooks.com).  Three are listed below: Honesty, Morality, and Conscience: Making Wise Choices in the Gray Areas of Life – by Jerry White Friends and Friendship: The Secrets of Drawing Closer - by Jerry White Dangers Men Face, 25th Anniversary Edition - by Jerry White   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Jerry White's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Caryn Ryan: At the end of the day, sometimes it's the simplest questions and sticking with the simplest, high-level questions that matters for solving problems and creating transformation. Because I remember one of the first questions I asked the traders was, “Where did the oil go that you thought you were trading?” They didn't know where the oil had gone. And so, we spent a lot of time having to come back to that question and analyzing, digging through years of data and models that would go from trading models that went from the floor to the ceiling. But we always had to come back to that basic question, “Where did the oil go?” ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Our guest this week is Caryn Ryan, the founder and managing member of Missionwell.  Missionwell was formed out of the belief that nonprofit organizations should benefit from the same efficiency and expertise as the for-profit sector, despite the significant resource differences between the two sectors.  Caryn spent 20 years with Amoco Corporation and BP plc, and then later with the merged company BP / Amoco. She was recruited by World Vision International, where she served as their Chief Financial Officer. Caryn was an early champion for virtual and shared services models for the nonprofit sector. Let's pick up on my conversation.  [00:01:20] Tommy Thomas: Before we dive too deep into your professional career, let's go back to your childhood. I'm always curious about how people got their start. What's your happiest memory of your childhood?  [00:01:30] Caryn Ryan: That's an interesting question. I'm not sure I have a single happiest memory, but certainly one of my happiest memories is a trip to downtown Detroit. I lived just north of Detroit growing up, going shopping with my mom and my grandma and my sister and getting a new winter coat, and shopping at Sanders. Have you heard of Sanders?  [00:01:48] Tommy Thomas: No, we didn't have that in the south, I don't think.  [00:01:51] Caryn Ryan:   They're a local chocolatier near Detroit, and sometimes even out here on the west coast, you can find chocolate from them. But we had a hot fudge sunday after we went shopping. So, it's a wonderful memory.  [00:02:03] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back on that, what was the greatest gift you got from your parents?  [00:02:07] Caryn Ryan: My perseverance. My parents themselves came from families that didn't have much and so they had come through a kind of late depression era and they knew the value of a penny and they knew that to get ahead, you had to really persevere. And they passed that on to their kids.  [00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: What are people who don't know you always surprised to learn about? [00:02:30] Caryn Ryan: A lot of people meet me through my company Missionwell.  And they assume that I'm an accountant, and that I like the details, but I don't and I'm not. And over time as time goes on, usually they see that I'm more of an analyzer of leaders and situations and work and, a really pragmatic solution finder, a really persistent person looking for solutions. I'm an entrepreneur, although, who would have thought it?  And I'm a reasonable strategist. And those who are extra observant will probably also be able to tell that my work is my Christian mission in life.  [00:03:07] Tommy Thomas:   When you went to college how did you decide on your major?  [00:03:10] Caryn Ryan: Hey, I'm from Detroit.  It's the Motor City. And growing up in a rather poor family, I wanted security. So, I thought right away I'm going into business in some capacity. I didn't have any idea what aspect of business, so I double majored in economics and psychology for my undergrad and for my MBA. I added finance and information technology and some organization development and organizational behavior. So, it was all general business-oriented, but with a core of finance and HR-ish kinds of things. And that's pretty much been what I've stuck with throughout my entire career. It's always been something to do with business whether that's a non-profit business or a for-profit business, and something to do with that core of finance and HR, but then a whole bunch of things peripherally around that, that those can branch out into a whole lot of things. [00:04:02] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back to the first time you had a staff to report to you, what do you remember about that?  [00:04:08] Caryn Ryan:  That would've been in the Financial Analysis Department of Amoco production, that's part of the old, pre-BP, part of the oil and gas exploration production division. There. And I have to say, I was a mediocre boss at best. I didn't see the role as servant leadership initially. I really saw it as leading a production team to goals. And in addition,  I had a boss at the time who was a great example of how not to treat people. But as my time in that seat progressed I learned that every boss has to protect their people. They have to advocate for them, and they have to develop their staff. And these are the things that allow people to flourish. And to this day maybe just based on how tough that job was, one of my joys is mentoring young people and bringing them along. And going back to that bad boss, as the years have gone by, I've thought about that bad boss from time to time. And I think that people who don't treat other people well, usually have one or two things going on in their life. Tommy one, they either have really low self-esteem and they must assuage that by criticizing and tearing down other people. Or two, they're motivated by greed and power. Understanding that has helped me quickly diagnose, is this a person type A or is it a person type B when they're really behaving badly. And if it's an issue of self-esteem, there's a way you can work with people over time to just bring them up, help them feel better about themselves, and help them transform how they interact in the world.  And I think that's part of our job too. So, he taught me a lot.  [00:05:44] Tommy Thomas: We can learn from sometimes less-than-ideal circumstances that's for sure. In September of 2002, you were living in London, you have a senior-level finance position with BP, probably very well compensated, I would imagine. What happened to cause you to leave the private sector and take that CFO job with World Vision International?  [00:06:04] Caryn Ryan: It was really lovely working in London. I thought you might ask that question. I had my family with me and I bought and remodeled an old home in Hamstead for the family, and we had an amazing life with fun schools for the kids and lots of travel and adventures. But if I step back from that, go back about five years before I'd already started noticing in the late, mid to late 1990s before the merger of Amico and BP that something was missing in my life. And this feeling grew while I was in London. And until around the year 2000, I went to a choir practice at the American Church in London. And I saw a poster and it was for an Alpha class and I was convicted. I needed to go and talk to my pastor about it. And he tried to persuade me not to, and I said, no, I need it. I need it. And I went to this Alpha class. It was 10 weeks long, and these questions about faith just poured out of me. And I was talking about Doubting Thomas in the Bible. That was me. And I told God eventually that if he would speak to me plainly on two big life questions, I'd be his person forever. And he did, for better or for worse, he did. He spoke to me in the Holy Spirit that week of the Alpha class, and very clearly in very plain language, and advised me what I needed to do. And I have been his person ever since. Although I'll never be the type of Christian who believes easily, and definitely I was a late comer to having a really true deep belief. But it's a commitment and it's a promise. And entrances, interestingly, I left Amoco with BP at that time without a job about two years later. But shortly around that time when I took the Alpha class, BP very generously referred me to Nick Isbister, who you know.  And he is a consultant or coach who looks at motivated abilities. And during this time when I was wrestling with various issues including my career, I cannot tell you how much his SIMA profile meant to me. As I was really trying to decide whether to stay or leave BP, where was I going next? And it was really part of God's gift to me. He was part of God's gift to me. And to see my gifts laid out so beautifully and my motivated abilities laid out so clearly really helped me move forward. And it helped me take that step to give my notice to BP and really have the view of, God has a plan and I just want to see what adventures are out there next. And I've used his profile from time to time. I go back and read it and review it and just try to understand this is still me and, what do I need to pay attention to now?  And it's been amazing.  [00:08:37] Tommy Thomas: So did World Vision come looking for you, or did you go looking for them?  [00:08:41] Caryn Ryan:  After I left BP I made a matrix about 57 different things, and over the next few months I whittled away at those to try to figure out what I should do. And when I got it down to the top three, I was like I don't think being a CFO was the problem. I like that. I don't think I was in the right place in a for-profit. I think I need a nonprofit or a Christian organization. And I had one-third criteria also, but around that time that I'd just gotten that narrowed down, I got a call from somebody else who you know, which is Rob Stevens. And he said to me, are you interested in a CFO role with World Vision International? And I paused for a minute, and I said, is that a Christian organization that helps kids overseas? And he said yes. And I started thinking, isn't that amazing? This hits these top criteria that I've just spent months trying to get whittled down to. And I said, yes, I'm interested. And it went from there. So, he shepherded that process. And I did end up working at World Vision for over three years.  [00:09:49] Tommy Thomas: Was that in London?  [00:09:52] Caryn Ryan: No, that was actually World Vision, out here in California.  After I left BP, I moved back to the United States, to Chicago, and then that's when Rob connected with me, and then I ended up moving out here to California.  I love it here. And I'm staying here. I've been here ever since.  [00:10:11] Tommy Thomas: So, years ago, probably, I guess probably about the time, that you were doing that transition. I was doing some work for World Vision in Seattle, and I had the privilege of recruiting a guy named Atu Tandon from Citibank. And about six months after Atul started to work at World Vision he gave me a call.  He is an Indian fellow, so he had that clipped British Indian accent. And he says, Tommy, If we had this many meetings at Citibank, we wouldn't have had a bank. And he just was overwhelmed by the number of meetings at World Vision. My question to you is, what was the biggest surprise you had from leaving something like BP to going to the nonprofit world in World Vision in particular?  [00:10:58] Caryn Ryan: That Atul, he is so efficient. I can see where World Vision's style of just having so many meetings to build consensus would make him go crazy. But for me, when I went there, I mentioned earlier that although I've been a Christian nominally since my baptism as a baby in the Catholic Church. And spent a lot of my entire life going to church in my twenties and thirties.  I actually view my actual timing of becoming a truly committed Christian as the beginning of that Alpha class I talked about. That's when I intentionally said to God, I'm yours. But it was so late, it was in my early forties before Christianity meant more than just going to church on a Sunday and sending my kids to Sunday school programs or singing in the choir or volunteering at all these to do all these financial and HR tasks. So it was shortly after that commitment that I went to World Vision, and I have to say that I expected something different from the industrial sector that I had just spent 20 years working in. And it was a surprise to me that it was an organization of regular people with similar people issues to any for-profit I'd ever worked at. And I just had to go back and think, okay, wait a minute. Okay. The 12 Apostles were, for the most part, just really regular guys. But they were just called to be where they were. It's not that they were people who were outstanding in any way. In fact, they were ordinary people. And at World Vision, it was the same thing. It's just a strong sense of being people being called by God. But they're regular people and they have regular problems, and they're like all people. They're broken. And that was a surprise. I just felt like it was going to be something different, that I'd be working at some higher plane. But it was really a great lesson that people are people with all the usual awards and that Christians or we're all just in need of God's grace. +++++++++++++++++   [00:12:55] Tommy Thomas: Looking back over 20 years in the private sector, what was the greatest experience or lesson you learned there that you were able to take forward? Transformation emerges from tackling problems. [00:13:02] Caryn Ryan: I think it would have to be that transformation emerges from tackling problems. When I was in London, working at BP after the merger of Amoco at BP, my business unit experienced a very tiny little loss. Maybe 100-150 million - in one month. And it was just big enough to get the attention of the CEO of BP you know Sir John or Lord John Brown. And that was while I was serving as the CFO of BP's Global Oil Trading Operations. And I had to take responsibility for that loss. And for all of these financial calls that were actually outside of my direct reports, they were spread all the way across this huge global trading operation where oil and gas were just traded in and out day and night, and I had to dig into that loss. Why did we have that loss? Even with a lot of pushback from these genius traders, who said you wouldn't understand.  I had to find all the weak controls, diagnose some pretty complex issues, and bring in teams of people and experts to help. And we did. We brought in smart staff and great consultants, a new compliance officer, and it just really professionalized our services and made us stronger and really better as a result. So what I took away was that digging in and taking responsibility for that loss and working it through in detail, was really the start of a journey toward transformation. And so you can't look at a problem and think, oh my gosh, I'm doomed. Or, this is just a problem. That problem is probably going to be an opportunity for you. And I've seen this over and over. If you dig into a problem from that problem, if you work at it, you can get transformation and you can end up in a much better place than where you were. And even if people think you're wrong early on, and if you just need to persist through, get the job done, work through the problem, and then later you'll see as I did that it was transformative. And people tend to come around over time, even if it takes a long time, and they'll say, wow, it's really good that you did what you did and wow, we really saw some good things happen as a result of you and your team of people who came in to figure out why things went wrong. And I guess another thing that comes to mind here is that at the end of the day, sometimes it's the simplest questions and sticking with the simplest, high-level questions that matter for solving problems and creating transformation. Because I remember one of the first questions I asked the traders was,  Where did the oil go that you thought you were trading? They didn't know where the oil had gone. And so, we spent a lot of time having to come back to that question over and analyzing, digging through years of data and models that would go from trading models that went from the floor to the ceiling. But we always had to come back to that basic question, where did the oil go? And that really helped guide us through and get to the bottom of it. And by getting that simple question asked, everything changed about how we traded oil over the next few years. So that kind of led me also into thinking that re-engineering is important and that even now at Mission I go back to a lot of my re-engineering experiences and when we have a new church or a new ministry, or a new nonprofit that comes and works with us at Missionwell, we like to re-engineer, rethink, how do they do their work? What are the problems they're facing? Doing that and solving those problems even if we have to push through some barriers with our business partners, really helps us deliver high-quality services. And it gives them more time to focus on the mission and it can become a piece of their transformation. So, this idea of viewing problems as opportunities for transformation, I think is important for me and for our teams at Missionwell, and probably for more people, more than they think.  [00:17:00] Tommy Thomas:  So of all the work you've ever done, what's the most ambitious project you've tackled?  [00:17:07] Caryn Ryan: That project I just mentioned might have been one of them, that was very all-encompassing. But another one that comes to mind is at Amoco, and this was before I moved to London. We implemented SAP and SAP is an integrated end-to-end business and financial system. And it affected everybody on how they worked. Just everybody across the entire organization. At that time, I was working in the chemical sector of Amoco and what I did there is I just found a great leader to come in and take that job. I had an inside track just from the networking I had done, and I just knew somebody who had the skills to do this. And after she came, she helped the chemical sector, and our sector did better than most in terms of implementing this. It was happening across the entire corporation, and our sector did better than most. And when I was then transferred to another downstream sector the one that retails oil and gas and has some refineries, I brought her in there because they had so many problems that they couldn't even, this is for a huge Fortune 15 company. They couldn't close their books. They didn't know how they were doing in terms of trucking oil back and forth to refineries. Everything was not working. Nothing was working. And when she came in, just bringing in the right leader, just calming things down focusing on the right problems. There was so much that needed to get fixed. And she really just had the expertise to do it. So you really just have to bring in the right person. But it wasn't just her, it was the whole team. It was all the leaders. It was pretty much this commitment that we have to get in and solve this problem. Knowing it wasn't going to be easy, knowing that it was going to be messy and complicated, but it was such a high priority. You just, we all knew it was a top priority. And the team, because they understood that it was such an important priority. Everybody was involved, and this was hundreds of people, hundreds and hundreds of people. Everybody got involved and took their piece and parts and just worked on delivering it so we could get the business back up and running and get the books closed and make sure that the downstream operations were functioning with the information that they needed. [00:19:22] Tommy Thomas: With ambition I guess can come risk.  What's the biggest risk you ever took in business?  [00:19:27] Caryn Ryan: I might go more personal on the risk side.  Maybe one of the biggest risks I've taken with starting Missionwell.  While from a business perspective, the risk was not having enough capital or knowledge or understanding. I risked a lot of my own savings and my earnings potential. And I knew that if we failed, I was responsible for my staff losing their jobs and my business partners losing services that can be difficult to get filled. So I think that was a pretty big risk. And my SIMA profile, if you were to read it, says  I'm an overcomer and a maximizer in that I persist through obstacles. And all those things have been true. And I think if you go into a situation where you're taking risks and you understand what risks you're taking then you'll manage them and the rewards that you get are really incredible. It's been all the time at Mission Oil and our growth over the last few years has just been amazing. We recruit better and stronger people. We don't need as much capital now. And we just help so many organizations with great missions. Taking risks - you have to do it.  No pain, no gain.  Risk is the pain of managing it is significant, but the rewards are definitely worth it. ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:20:44] Tommy Thomas:  You mentioned hiring and building a staff. What's the main thing you're looking for in a senior person?  [00:20:50] Caryn Ryan: Right now, essentially our recruiting is guided by our values. I'm looking for a fit in terms of, is this a person who really believes that nonprofits and or religious organizations matter in the world? And if that box is checked, we can proceed. And then we ask, does this person value people? And do they know how to value people and how to motivate people? And then we'll ask relative to our partnering value, is this a person who can relate well to others? Is it a person who can help them? And they need to be able to pass that too. And then relative to principles, we're looking for character, good, really good character in people. So we are looking for people who can talk to us about character and when they've used aspects of the character to make decisions. And then finally we'll look at process and ask, is this a person who really knows how to look at, we're in the business of offering services, so they need to be able to look at work as a process and say, how can we make this better, faster, smoother work better for our business partners? And if they can hit all those and have the technical or functional expertise that we need, then chances are they're going to be a good fit.  [00:22:01] Tommy Thomas: Wow. So, what does the interview process look like for you? Say you spot somebody, and you think this looks good.  What does the interview process look like from start to finish? Is it a day, is it a week?  [00:22:12] Caryn Ryan: The interview process at my company starts out with our HR department. They do a variety of pre-checks, pre-screens, and then depending on the seniority of the person I might do up to three meetings with the person. And those are typically via Zoom because we're oftentimes hiring people to work remotely. Even now moving from our regular professional staff to the leadership level. We're looking to start moving more and more remote with that. So sometimes I don't even meet our staff or our senior people now in person. It's strictly via Zoom. So, we've learned how to form relationships. We've learned how to test and assess. We've learned how to talk to people on Zoom and make the connections that we need to make with them and do the assessments that we need to do. It helps that one of my HR staff is actually remote too, so she really deeply understands remote recruiting. And by the time a candidate comes to me, they've been pretty well vetted by my team. And I will dig in on the leadership qualities sometimes so that the questions that I'll ask are similar even to some of the questions you're asking me. Tell me about a time when you faced a big decision and how did you handle it? So, we're looking for not only the values match, but to some extent what are the leadership competencies that are going to be needed for that particular job. And asking them to come back with behavioral or observational data to us so that we can actually get a feel for how they actually operate day to day. We allow people a lot of time to ask us questions too. We're always constantly trying to stop and pause. It's not a one-way decision. We know that.  We also allow a whole lot of time to answer questions when we bring a person on. That's not the end. We know that a great orientation for the person is important. If they're going to be a fit, they need to be oriented really well. And we need to do a lot of check-ins with them early on to just be sure things are working okay for them. So, we view it a little bit holistically, you have great job descriptions posting appropriately doing the right amount of interviewing with people, and then making sure that they get settled in when they come. ++++++++++++++++++++++   [00:24:27] Tommy Thomas: I want to change gears a minute and say that if you were on a nonprofit version of a Shark Tank show and you had nonprofit organizations presenting their case to you, what are you going to have to know really well before you open up your checkbook? [00:24:46] Caryn Ryan: This is interesting, but really Tommy, I don't think it's any different for a non-profit, than it would be for a for-profit organization. So, you're always asking, do you have a good vision? And a really big and important question is, do you have the resources? And that's in terms of money but it's also in terms of the network of people to support you in making steps towards your vision and making things happen. And then do you have the drive? Do you feel called for this?  How do you demonstrate that? How do you demonstrate that you have the call and that you have the drive? Are you a persister? One thing that will happen for every new organization is just tons of obstacles and problems. They're nonstop. And so, you have to have that ability to persist and to say, look, I see this obstacle. Am I going to go over it, under it, or around it? But for sure I'm going to go around it or get through this. You need to have that kind of a foundational trait characteristic. I think the difference really between a for-profit and non-profit is where you get the money from. The Shark Tank for the for-profit might be from investors or a bank. Whereas the Shark Tank for a nonprofit might be from stakeholders, donors, and grantors. You've got to make sure that the business plan reflects that. But you still have to have the money and you still have to have the people. And the sense of call might be different too. I think if you're working in a for-profit, you may have a vision around some new product or service. In the nonprofit world, your call may be even more deeply embedded. Especially if it's a religious calling. It may be something that's very right-tied or connected to your faith, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how deeply connected it is to your faith. If you don't have the same things that a for-profit needs, your chances of being successful fall. Now, God can always come in and intervene,  but if you're going to do your part in it you need the same things that a for-profit does. Our guest next week will be Jerry White. Jerry's a retired United States Air Force Major General, and a former International President of The Navigators. Earlier in his career, he worked in the startup days of NASA as a professor at the Air Force Academy. [00:27:23] Jerry White: We prayed and told the Air Force, send us anywhere you want. Just give me an engineering job somewhere. And with absolutely no hint from me or any input from anybody that I know, the Air Force sent me to Cape Canaveral in the New American Space Program. Tommy, I didn't even know what it was, and I became a mission controller, got right smack in the middle of all of the new stuff that the Air Force was doing. The manned flights, the Mercurys, the Geminis, Atlas, Titan, Polaris, you name it. And every conceivable kind of rocket. And in that, I got a new glimpse of the future.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas 2021 Distinguished Alumni Recipient Caryn Ryan, '79 Missonwell Website   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Caryn Ryan's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Lindy Black: I know in my own life having seen that the test is not when things are smooth. The test is when the road is bumpy and the water's choppy to really see what you're made of and how deeply you can dig to the place of learning to love as well as listen and respond with character and quality.  +++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:22] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the conversation with Lindy Black of The Navigators that we started last week. In my research for the conversation with Lindy, I read about the impact that journaling has played in her life. Let's pick up the conversation there.  In my preparation for the conversation, you indicated to me that you practiced journaling. Yes. How did that get started?  [00:00:51] Lindy Black: When I was in college, a long time ago I was taught how to have a daily time with the Lord. You answered three basic questions. So what did I read? And what did the passage say? What did I learn from it and what did I want to do? Now it can be framed in all different ways, but those three questions and the encouragement took a whole year, and I had this lovely little book that had every day of the year, and so I, they said if you do this for a year, you will gain depth. In your relationship with God, you'll also begin to observe things, patterns you can go back through and read it and see what God was teaching you that year. That was a long time ago, but that was the seed of where I am today in journaling. Now, I do not journal every day. I don't record everything. I use my journal to hit highlights of something God has done. It's a place where I process things about our children, our grandchildren, or other people who, as I'm writing things out, I'm praying and I'm dialoguing with the Lord. Things become clearer. I also learned, I don't know the first person to tell me this, but they used a multicolored pen and their thoughts were always in black ink. But when a specific verse or a key insight that they felt was significant from the Lord, they would put that in red. So, when you flip back through your journal, it's pretty apparent when something very significant popped up. So, my journals are very much a place for recording progress. I generally put the hard things in my journal.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but I find that's a place, a safe place for me to process what's going on.  [00:03:02] Tommy Thomas:   When you're mentoring someone do you encourage them to journal? [00:03:06] Lindy Black: Sometimes. It depends on the scenario. Some people are averse to writing. It is not a place that brings blessing and joy and you have to find that out. I'm thinking of a woman in particular, she is such an external processor to have to sit and write is just brutal for her.  And so you don't want to put that on somebody who doesn't like it. The thing though that I do try to encourage all people that I engage with is by at least recording the high spots of what you're learning and you're hearing a theme all the way through this, the word Learn, Learning, Learner. You just can't remember, oftentimes those really spectacular moments when you had a breakthrough. You either have an insight into a person you're working with or supervising or an experience with one of your kids, an engagement with your spouse, or a team event that really, may have just gone horribly, but by writing it out, did those big things. Then you can go back. Someone encouraged me to read through my journal at the end of each year and see what themes were there and what I was, what was going on, and what I was learning. That has been a very valuable discipline for me because it, on the one hand, encourages me that I'm not the same. I've been growing, I've been becoming more of who God intended me to be. And it also lends to having concrete pieces, meaty pieces to share with others to encourage them on their journey.  [00:04:55] Tommy Thomas: In some of the material I read about you that at some point you got involved in Trueface Leadership Catalyst. And I wonder if there's a short story behind that, and then how has that impacted you as a leader?  [00:05:07] Lindy Black: We had what we called a mentoring intensive, and that was the first time I met Bill Thrall, one of the leaders at that time of Trueface Leadership Catalyst.  And I had also read The Ascent of a Leader, which is one of their books from, I guess it was written about 30 years ago now.  So, there were principles there that about you want to continue to grow in competence and character. If you only grow in character but not competence, you're going to be a truncated leader. If you grow in competence, but your character doesn't continue to make progress, you will implode. You absolutely will implode. So I'd read the book and then Bill Thrall was part of our mentoring intensive and there were some key things he introduced me to. And one of those was a definition of humility, trusting God and others with me. That definition right there changed my life. So, for me to walk in humility with God and others meant I entrusted, I trusted myself, who I was, my good, bad, and ugly. The whole thing was humility, particularly with God and then also with others. So, there were some jewels that began to change me both from that book as well as from those early meetings with Bill Thrall that went on to be a part of the High Trusts Leader course they offered and a number of other things. I did some teaching with Bruce McNichol and that has been a great privilege for me. And today I am two and a half years in of being a board member. And my greatest motivation there was to be able to give back to a ministry that has really meant a great deal to me.  +++++++++++++++++++++++++   [00:07:04] Tommy Thomas:  You stepped down at Christmas from your role on the national leadership team.  What's it been like so far, to let go of that and look toward this next season?  [00:07:15] Lindy Black: It's mostly been good, but there have been some harder things too. So, the good is that I have a whole new level of flexibility and freedom that I haven't for quite a while, and that is, I think I just have deep joy in that and not having to race out the door early most mornings to make it to a meeting. Just not having the volume of work to do brings that about. So that's been really good. I've found that we've been able to do a little bit more with our family. We have three married children and 12 grandchildren. Have some flexibility there. I also think just not getting up so early has been great. I'm averaging about an hour more of sleep, I think, than I have. That does wonders for the soul. That's the good part. And I'm having a few more different kinds of opportunities that are bringing a lot of blessing and satisfaction to my heart. That's some of the good, alright. The other part is, it's probably twofold. One is I really miss the intense and challenging dialogues. I mean that positively with my teammates. I miss that. I still, of course, can see them and have relationships, but it's just not quite the same. And there are days when I just really miss the team interaction, and I miss not having the consistent time I did with the individuals.  And most days I'm able to handle the fact that I'm not in the center anymore and I don't know everything going on. And being content to let go of that is largely okay, but sometimes there's that feeling of being left out and I'm not in the center where I've lived, especially for the last 13 years.  So mostly good and some hard.  [00:09:27] Tommy Thomas: Occasionally I do some speaking on succession planning, and I guess one of the things I've observed, and maybe this is more true for men as they begin to think about transition and next season, is that they don't realize how much of their identity is tied up in the job.  Did you face any of that?  [00:09:44] Lindy Black: I can't speak for all women, but my observation is that I've had a little easier time than some of the brothers in stepping out. I don't know if part of that is because my leadership opportunities came a bit later. Some of my real significant opportunities came after our kids were, they were graduating from high school and beginning the journey to college. That may be a factor there, I think.  I never thought I would've had the privilege to do what I'm doing, so I really feel like I'm the most blessed to be able to have had those opportunities.  And I just love, I love being home.  I love it. I don't even mind doing laundry and cooking. I actually enjoy all that. So, there's so much of my life that is still present and rich and growing. So, I love working.  I don't think I'm a workaholic, although I've bordered on that sometimes in the past. But I love being active and working, so I can still do that at this stage. And I don't feel that my identity was wrapped up in a career in the same way that some of the men that I'm working with have walked through that. ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:11:07] Tommy Thomas: That's encouraging.  I want to go to a section of the podcast that I always enjoy, and that's getting people to respond to some quotes.  I'm just going to go through some quotes and maybe you'll speak from experience or observation, but so the first one let's go. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of convenience, but where they stand in moments of challenge, moments of great crisis in controversy”. [00:11:36] Lindy Black: Wow. I That rings so true. And I know in my own life having seen that the test is not when things are smooth.  The test is when the road is bumpy and the water's choppy to really see what you're made of and how deeply you can dig to the place of learning to love as well as listen and respond with character and quality.  [00:12:04] Tommy Thomas:  Ben Zander, the Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, said, “The conductor doesn't make a sound, the conductor's power depends on his ability to make other people powerful”. [00:12:17] Lindy Black: Wow. I love that. I love it. If I were to give you a little one-sentence job description, it's been to be able to see that happen with our children.  But also, with those I've worked with. [00:12:36] Tommy Thomas: Frederick Wilcox said, “Progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.” [00:12:47] Lindy Black: Whoa. As I'm listening to that and I immediately went in my head, it's Lindy, where do you have your foot on first base, but you're wanting to be on second? [00:12:59] Tommy Thomas: President Eisenhower said, “In preparing for a battle, I've always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”.  [00:13:08] Lindy Black: That pokes into, if you are not as a leader, willing to adjust, adapt, and move with new circumstances piling in, in other words, I'm going to work my plan no matter what. You are going to be one disappointed, frustrated leader, but having done your planning.  Wow. I love that one.  [00:13:30] Tommy Thomas: Here's one from Thomas Edison. “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.” [00:13:42] Lindy Black: Oh yes. I mean it building what is on your heart in your dream? Or a new idea. Oh, it is like privilege, but that 99% sweat and labor.  [00:14:01] Tommy Thomas: “When you're sitting around the table with your leadership team, you never want to be the smartest person at the table.”  [00:14:08] Lindy Black: I've never heard that before.  But see, that to me ties into this whole aspect of humility and also of drawing the best of each other, out of others.  [00:14:22] Tommy Thomas: Let's see here. So, here's one from a guy, Warren Benes. He was writing back when I was in graduate school, so this comes from days gone by. “Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they're not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.”  [00:14:55] Lindy Black: See I really agree with that. My question or challenge to that would come in that you have to do a variety of things, much of which you will not be great at before you can get to the place where you do know who you are, what you're made of, and where your strengths are. So, if you introduce that to someone who is 25 years old that may be difficult because they need some real-life experiences and leadership opportunities to understand what they're made of.  [00:15:26] Tommy Thomas: Booker T. Washington said, “ Success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life, but by the obstacles he's overcome.” [00:15:35] Lindy Black:  Wow. I think sometimes it's hard to remember some of the obstacles, perhaps that one. Yeah, to be able to know and be able to give. Give great things. Have a heart of gratitude for those things.  [00:15:52] Tommy Thomas: So I'm not going to be able to pronounce this person's name. I know she was from France. Let's just leave it at that. “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood, and don't assign them tasks and work. Rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the open sea.” [00:16:10] Lindy Black: Yeah. Keep focused on the vision as opposed to the nitty gritty detail.  [00:16:16] Tommy Thomas: “Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up” from Oliver Wendell Holmes. [00:16:24] Lindy Black: I wonder what he was picturing when he said that. If he was Ricky recognizing the reality that sometimes people who can dream dreams may not be able to have the know-how to see it actually come to be.  [00:16:41] Tommy Thomas: That's where my mind went when I read that. Some people, yeah, they're dreamers, they're vision casters, they're vision setters.  That same notion, I think needs to be planted into minds as somebody that can execute.  [00:16:53] Lindy Black: That's interesting you say that Tommy because I feel like that describes where my best contribution has been, particularly these last 12 years because I've worked with some incredible visionary leaders. And so you have this incredible vision, this motivating, charismatic personality, and then you have people who are going to be the most impacted. But how do you bridge from the people who are in everyday life living out the vision to the grander of what they're presenting? You don't just need a detailed plan, but you need to know how to win hearts all the way along the way.  And I think that's something I've really enjoyed being able to do. [00:17:42] Tommy Thomas:   “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Burns. [00:17:53] Lindy Black: I love that because you, because most people think, I said it, so therefore it's been communicated, and you have no idea what was heard. [00:18:04] Tommy Thomas: “No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5% by your academic credentials, 15% by your professional experiences, and 80% by your communication skills.” [00:18:20] Lindy Black: Wow - I have not heard that one before, but that is very true. And understanding communication is always two-way.  It's never one way. [00:18:27] Tommy Thomas: Here's one from Peter Drucker. “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.” [00:18:35] Lindy Black: Oh yeah. So how do we help people grow in that skill? I don't know. Do you think that can be learned or is it innate? What do you think?  [00:18:46] Tommy Thomas: I don't know. I guess I got to believe we can learn to become better listeners. But to hear something that's not being said, that's got to have a little bit of intuition. A group is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is a bunch of people in the elevator, but the elevator is broken.  [00:19:09] Lindy Black: Because they have to be a team at that point. They can't just be their own people stuck together. [00:19:14] Tommy Thomas: Leadership is engaging other people to deliver desired results.  [00:19:19] Lindy Black:  And I think if it's only about you determining the desired results, it will be limited. But if it is the group deciding what the results need to be, it'll put you further down the road.  [00:19:33] Tommy Thomas: There's great power and authenticity. Oscar Wild said, “Be yourself. Everyone else has been taken”. St. Catherine of Sienna, put it this way. “Be who God meant you to be, and you'll set the world on fire.” So maybe think back and maybe get off the response and maybe get a little deeper here. Give me some things, some of the things that you've learned about authenticity over the years. [00:19:57] Lindy Black: There are two words that I think are significant here. One is transparency and one is vulnerability. I can be transparent and be very honest, but there's a glass wall up. So you can see who I am, that's a way to describe it. You see me, but you can have no connection or impact or voice with me. But vulnerability is being honest with others, an individual or others. But you give, but you're vulnerable. But as you're vulnerable, you actually open the way to engage with other people and not just, oh, you can see me, but you have no access or entrance into my mind, heart, or life. So, authenticity in and of itself means being real, but I think you can be real and transparent and alone and isolated, and you can be real and be vulnerable because you're opening up your heart to the influence of others. I think that's part of humility.  Can I go back to being authentic? I think you have to be careful not to entrust the deepest parts of yourself to people who will not handle that carefully. And that's probably been one of the things that I would say has been a hard place for me, and that is I so much enjoy knowing others and having them know me, having been hurt a couple of times with offering more of myself than what that person was able to hold. In kindness and love and carefulness, that's been, that's a hard one. You don't want to become jaded. You don't want to put a wall up. But you do have to learn to be wise in how much you share with different people.  ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:22:05] Tommy Thomas:   What do you understand today about your life that you didn't understand a year ago? [00:22:15] Lindy Black: I would say not at a level 10, but at a very middle of the road. I have learned that I really am dispensable. I am not indispensable. Other people can do things. They may not do things the way I would do them, but it doesn't mean they're not able to do things in a way that to carry. The function, having just stepped out of my role, that's a really big deal to me. So, I think I've been able to move from, I'm like, picture your hand clenched. I must do this. I know how to do this. I am super critical to the process, the future, whatever. And little by little, I've been able to feel my hand opening up over the course of this last year in a way that it doesn't go to the place where I am not valuable or needed or important, but being able to say I trust others carrying this baton forward and I can let go. And that's been probably, I would say it's on some days that's been a little harder than I would care to admit, but it has been.  [00:23:32] Tommy Thomas:   If you could go back in time, what would you tell a younger version of yourself?  [00:23:37] Lindy Black: I would say a couple of things.  First, failure is rarely fatal. That failure is a normal part of growing up and maturing. That's one thing I would've needed to, I wish I had heard that often, and maybe I did hear it, but I didn't receive it and I didn't believe it. I would say secondly,  learn to be kind to yourself. I've been driven in a variety of ways most of my life. And I've grown up in some ways being able to not take myself quite as seriously but learning to be kind to myself and taking care of myself. I would've benefited to have heard that more often in my younger years. I think I've learned to do that, but it has been, I feel a little later in life than I wish it had been. I'd say the other thing is because when God opens doors, say yes and walk through those. Don't hold back even if you have no idea where this open door is going to lead.  [00:24:48] Tommy Thomas: Thinking about younger women in leadership, Lindy, what are your observations there about the ways that we might can improve that as a society and as a culture? [00:24:59] Lindy Black: Yes. Great question. I feel my number one encouragement is to pay attention to the emerging women leaders in the span of your business or your organization. Most of them lack confidence in what they think they can bring. And some of that, it's a very interesting ambiguity that can go on. I think in women want to lead, they want to make a significant contribution, but they hold back or they're fearful. My number one encouragement is to pay attention to the emerging women leaders in the span of your business or your organization. And that could be for a number of different reasons, but it's that push-pull, and wise leaders, wise mentors and coaches will be able to pay attention and help emerging women leaders be able to understand more about themselves.  It is my experience that these emerging women leaders may need a bit more, I would call it a more defined pathway to run in. And you could really serve them by saying, this is what I would like for you to do. I believe you can do it, go after it. As opposed to just prove yourself and it is wide open. I would think emerging leaders need a bit more of a defined pathway. They also need a great deal of emerging women leaders of affirmation and feedback. I find that in general, women don't get as much of that in the workplace as perhaps their male counterparts and they need it, I'd say even more so keep those things in mind.  [00:26:43] Tommy Thomas:  Can that come from a male supervisor as well as a female supervisor?  [00:26:48] Lindy Black: Yes, definitely in my own life, most of the most significant influencers in terms of supervisors, they've been men. I don't even know, Tommy, in the last 20 years, I haven't had a supervisor that was a woman. And their paying attention to what I need to develop to bring the best contribution possible has been invaluable. And my observation is not many women have that in the workplace, especially in higher levels of executive leadership, there are just many more men in those roles than women. And so, I've had the incredible privilege of serving under several. So yes, absolutely, male supervisors can do that. Now, the best combination would be to have an excellent supervisor, be they male or female, but then also have a woman being able to walk alongside in a coaching, mentoring capacity. So both. What comes through to me is often insecure. I don't know my way; the world has completely changed the landscape for women in their jobs and careers. It's new. Women haven't walked in the place that the world is today. And I think that landscape, we're going to need to understand more and more how do we help women in their season that they find themselves. How are we going to meet them where they are and bring them the development they need because they're hungry to receive that training and development? ++++++++++++++++++++++++ You can see from these two conversations with Lindy, what a blessing she's been to The Navigators. I'm sure that the leadership there is glad that she will continue to walk along the side of their emerging leaders.  Our guest next week will be Caryn Ryan.  Caryn spent 20 years with Amoco Corporation and BP Plc.  And then later with the merged organization BP/Amoco. She held key finance positions in London, the Soviet Union, Chicago, and Houston. She was recruited by World Vision International, where she served as their Chief Financial Officer. She will be sharing her journey from BP/Amoco to World Vision to her current role as Founder and Managing Member of Missionwell. [00:29:16] Caryn Ryan: I was a mediocre boss at best.   I didn't see the role as servant leadership initially. I really saw it as leading a production team to goals. And in addition, I had a boss at the time who was a great example of how not to treat people. But as my time in that seat progressed, I learned that every boss has to protect their people. They must advocate for them, and they have to develop their staff. And these are the things that allow people to flourish. And to this day maybe just based on how tough that job was one of my joys is mentoring young people and bringing them along.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Navigators TrueFace - Lindy Black The Assent of a Leader   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Lindy Black's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Lindy Black: Through the encouragement of several different people, I learned to be a student of people. And in doing that, they often don't realize that you are studying everything about them. You're looking at their facial expressions, their non-verbal body language. You're looking at their tone or listening to their tone and more than all of those is that you're listening to the words they're saying and, in a sense, becoming a student of who they are. When you do that, you can remain in a posture of a learner.  ++++++++++++++++++++++ Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Lindy Black. Lindy is transitioning into her leadership role with The Navigators. She stepped off the National Leadership Team after the tenure of 12 years at the end of 2022. Her new role is walking alongside men and women serving in the background as a coach and developer of existing and new national leaders.  I first met Lindy when I was conducting the Vice-President of Development search for The Navigator several years ago. When we conduct a search, we typically interview members of the senior staff as part of our due diligence. Lindy was an easy person to interview. And as I remember, she gave us a lot of valuable input for the search.  Another thing we have in common is our love for Auburn University. Lindy spent several years serving on The Navigator staff at Auburn. And I took my electrical engineering degree from Auburn and came to be a Christ follower doing my sophomore year. Let's pick up on my conversation with Lindy Black.  [00:01:44] Tommy Thomas: Before we go too deep into your professional career, let's go back to your childhood. I'm always curious as to how people got their start.  What's your most memorable experience from childhood?  [00:01:54] Lindy Black: I don't know if I would be able to just say one, because our family moved about every two years, and in that process, my dad, who is still living at 93, was a football coach.   His goal was to be a head professional football coach. And so consequently we moved a great deal and in that, there was every single place we lived, there was always the reality that there was something new and fresh there. I didn't always think it would be, but every time God came through and put a new situation that was very…  I don't know if I'd use the word developmental, but it just helped me be more of the person I have become today. So, all that moving around and having a football coach for a dad produced some things in me for sure.  [00:02:52] Tommy Thomas:  Staying on that theme for a minute, what would you say was the greatest gift that you got from your parents in your childhood? [00:03:01] Lindy Black: I would say they were so different. My mom was so merciful and kind and listening and caring, always seeing the one who may not be seen. And my dad was driven. He was a Vince Lombardi fan to the max.  His motto was, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. The blend of those two things that's their gift. To me, they were so different. And on a good day, I like to believe I have the best of both of them, at least at work inside of me.  I'm not exclusively one or the other. But that was their blending of themselves definitely was the greatest gift.  [00:03:43] Tommy Thomas:  What's something that people are surprised to find out about? [00:03:46] Lindy Black: If they haven't been around me much, I think they will be surprised at how competitive I am. I guess that comes from being the daughter of a football coach, Tommy. But once they're around me a little bit, then they'll understand that oh yeah, they're not surprised then. So, I would love to think that being competitive, can have a real negative connotation for sure. But for me, I think it was a push to excel. Tommy Thomas: Yeah, sticking with that for a minute, I interviewed Dr. Linda Livingstone at Baylor recently.  She was an All-American basketball player at Oklahoma State.   I asked her about the competitive nature and how a Christian either resolves or lives in the center of the tension of that. So, I would pose that question to you. How, as a Christian, do you live in the center of the tension of being competitive?  [00:04:39] Lindy Black: I think there's a competitive spirit where you want to be all that you can be and that can be very healthy. I think when it becomes unhealthy, at least in my own experiences, when by being competitive you put down others. Now on a ball field, you want to win on a basketball court, on a track meet you want to win, being the best you can be and somebody will lose. However, in real life, that same spirit, which is what I'm describing in me, I think it's healthy when it provokes you to excel. Still, the unhealthy part comes in when it is to the detriment or the putting down, the oppressing, the powering up over someone else. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:05:28] Tommy Thomas: When you joined The Navigators did you think it would be a career? [00:05:33] Lindy Black: In a sense, I had my original career first, which was being a secondary math teacher.   And so, when God called myself and Vic, my husband out, he was a systems analyst working in a computer company, and I was a school teacher when he called us out of that, I think there was a deep sense that we were all in for a lifetime if he wanted to change the path that was up to him.  We saw it as a lifelong calling, but we were a little older when that step took place.  [00:06:08] Tommy Thomas: So how long had you been in public education?  [00:06:10] Lindy Black: About seven years at that time. [00:06:11] Tommy Thomas:  So you were probably in your early thirties when God called you. [00:06:14] Lindy Black: Yeah, I was in my late twenties. Vic was in his early thirties.  [00:06:18] Tommy Thomas: Go back to your first management role when you actually had people reporting to you. What do you remember about that?  [00:06:27] Lindy Black:  My first team that I led had four men on it, and they were all older than me and they had more experience than me.  The first tangible emotion that came to mind is I was nervous, and I felt insecure. Now, many years later, I read the best article on leading people who know more than you do. What I was learning in that early first management was that I needed to lean into the expertise and actually the greater knowledge of my teammates. And in doing that, not only was I learning, but it gave me an opportunity to affirm and encourage their development in what they were bringing. But I don't think I could have articulated that in the first couple times we met together. So, leaning into people who know more. There's an art to that and I think I was early on in learning how to draw others out, how to affirm them, and how to bring their best because then the team is at its best and I get to grow.  So that was my first memory.  [00:07:43] Tommy Thomas: So fast forward to your most recent assignment before you began to go into this next season of life, if I could have been present at a team meeting and we dismissed you and I asked them what would be the most challenging thing about working for Lindy? What would they say?  [00:07:58] Lindy Black: The most challenging, they would say sometimes she drives too hard to get to closure. And because of that, she can push us faster than maybe we want to be pushed. That would be one thing. I think they would, that's probably in the team context.  That would've been the thing they would say. [00:08:20] Tommy Thomas: So can you think of, without naming the names of the guilty or the innocent, can you think of a time when you did that and looking back how that went down?  [00:08:29] Lindy Black: I think what happened is that the decisions, the endpoint of the discussion, that we didn't get to the best landing point, because I pushed for closure there. In a sense, we truncated some of the creative thinking and the deeper thinking because I was more concerned that we had an end to it versus the depth of the discussion. I'm picturing a particular situation and I think that was the case. We didn't get to the best conclusion and then we had to come back to it and it's always harder to come back. So that was a hard balance for me to learn because I'm a closure person and I want to see a process finish and not just stay up in the realm of ideas and in the clouds, but actually get to a point where we can move forward together as a team. [00:09:26] Tommy Thomas:  If we flip that question, what would they say was the most rewarding part of working for Lindy?  [00:09:33] Lindy Black: They would say, if I know Lindy's leading the meeting, we're gonna be okay. She will draw out people, she will listen. But she has an intuitive sense of when to stop the discussion most times and when to let it go a little bit longer.  [00:09:51] Tommy Thomas:  Successful people are always asked, what makes you successful?  I want to maybe frame that question a little differently and maybe the question would read what is a factor that helped you succeed that people on the outside probably wouldn't realize? [00:10:08] Lindy Black: I don't know if they would be able to observe this, Tommy, or not. But I think through the encouragement of several different people, I learned to be a student of people. And in doing that, they often don't realize that you are studying everything about them. You're looking at their facial expressions, their non-verbal body language. You're looking at their tone or listening to their tone, and more than all of those is that you're listening to the words they're saying and, in a sense, becoming a student of who they are. When you do that, you can remain in a posture of a learner, which is a high value for me, is to stay in the posture of a learner. So I don't think people know how much I'm absorbing about their outward look as well as their thoughts that they're communicating and the emotion that I perceive. So perhaps they don't realize that everything they're doing is helping me to understand either how to draw the best of them out, how to posture them for their next assignment, or a variety of other things. [00:11:25] Tommy Thomas: Did a mentor teach you that, or do you learn by reading and how did that come to pass?  [00:11:30] Lindy Black: I have to give my mom first credit on this one.  Especially as a teenager, I had words. I really had lots of thoughts and my mom was the best listener because she would be fully present to me. And what I've wound up realizing later, not initially, is that as she listened to me and continued to pull out more from me, I actually worked my way to a good place, a place of security, or I talked myself to the right decision, or I was able in processing friendships to be able to realize, oh, okay, that friendship probably isn't the best. But it was rarely because she told me. She gave me enough time and space to be able to be to process that out that. That was the foundation of being a learner an observer and a learner of people. And then realizing if people are given long enough, very often with good questions and a very present listening posture, they actually can come to some of the best solutions all by themselves. Now, that's in a one-on-one situation. So, I think also, though probably the negative has influenced me just as much. And when I say the negative, I mean watching what happens when people don't listen well, the implications are, they usually lead to a very unhealthy team or an unhealthy working environment. So some of that is by watching the opposite of what you want to see and learning from that.   +++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:13:14] Tommy Thomas: Were you a trailblazer in The Navigators relative to women in senior leadership?  [00:13:19] Lindy Black: I am not the only one, but I would say yes.  [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas: My early reflections were when I was in my early twenties, that it was probably a pretty male-dominated, is probably the stronger word, but The Navigators I knew were, were men.  How did you break into that?  [00:13:37] Lindy Black: If I were being honest, Tommy, back in our early years on staff, we joined navigator staff in 1981, and in from then until probably for at least 10 years, maybe longer, maybe closer to 15.  If you had told me that one day I would be a Senior Vice President and Associate US Director of The Navigators, I would've said in your dreams, that will never happen for me or probably any other woman. It was going to take too long to see women being able to have the opportunity to contribute who they are and their gifting and strengths. So when I was, it was 1994, and the man leading the campus ministry at the time c called the house and it was in the days when the phone was connected, you couldn't walk around. It was connected. And he called and I said, hello and we chit chatted. And I said let me go get Vic. And he goes Lin, I don't want to talk to Vic. I want to talk to you. And I said, okay. And he goes, I want to invite you to, it was a Campus Net event going on in London, England a number of months later. And I said, I remember saying, you want me to go? And he said, yes. And he went on to say some reasons why. And it was not just for my benefit, it was for me to benefit the people around the world from around the world that would be there. Honestly, Tommy, I would've said, I didn't think anybody saw who I was, I didn't, I just thought, I'm doing my wonderful campus ministry with my husband here in Auburn, Alabama. I loved what we were doing, but actually somebody else. There were others watching and I didn't know that. So that opportunity was my first of being invited to bring something that I didn't actually know I could bring. They asked me to stand in front of the group, and I don't remember the subject, but it was absolutely terrifying to do this. But I began to see, wait, I do have something to offer. So then fast forward about five years my kids were finishing high school and a door opened for me to be engaged with staff training in The Navigators. And I realized, oh, I'm a people developer. I love this. And by that time, we had a staff team of about nine men and women and seeing them become more of who they were or who God created them to be. Then that became a niche, and I realized if, especially as a woman, I'm, it's probably true for men too, but to you, you need to find where you can excel and then do it with all your might, because bringing excellence actually opens doors, and that is what happened to me. So that was an initial place of contribution. Now, as I began to excel in training, then I had I think it was three other doors open up to be an associate director of a particular team. And that was actually new ground for The Navigators at that time. This was in the early 2000s and up until my current role. So I think in that there were places where I was able to excel and people realized I could bring a contribution that was broader than just the local or just among women, but it would bless the whole of the work.  [00:17:21] Tommy Thomas: Let's stay with this team thing and leading people. What's the most important quality you're looking for when you bring somebody onto your team? [00:17:29] Lindy Black: I think, and foremost is they don't think they know everything that, that when you see that quality in someone that they think they know a lot or perhaps they know quite a bit, or even everything about the area that your team is focused on, that would be someone I would not want to invite onto a team because that prevents learning from others, learning from God, learning together as a team, because it can often be paired with a strong sense of independence and  People who are going to serve well on a team have to be strong in interdependence. So that would be one thing I would not want to see. On the positive side, EQ in emotional intelligence, if that is strong, which the beginnings of emotional intelligence, the foundational piece is self-awareness. If a man or woman has a high degree of self-awareness knowing where they have strength, where they have vulnerability, that person will be much more likely to be an excellent team member because they're not independent, but their emotional intelligence brings that deep level of self-awareness, then that can lead to being a good student of other people. [00:18:50] Tommy Thomas: But say you do make a mistake along the way, and somebody has to leave their job.  What have you found to be the best way to terminate somebody? [00:18:58] Lindy Black: For one thing, I would have asked someone to step out of a role, that should never come as a surprise to them. By the time you get to the point you're saying you can't be in this role any longer, you're done. If that is a surprise to them, then you have definitely failed as a leader. When you fire someone, if it comes as a surprise to them, you have definitely failed as a leader. Definitely. So there has to be periodic evaluations and I found being able to have thoughts in writing ahead of time notes to go back to, that's life or death. Because if you're a busy leader, you can't remember all the conversations. And giving people opportunities, whether it's formally in a performance improvement plan or informally just in coaching them to give them the opportunity, every opportunity possible to be able to overcome weaknesses that could potentially remove them from their job.  ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:19:55] Tommy Thomas: What's the most effective team-building exercise you've ever used? [00:20:03] Lindy Black: Boy, that is a tough one. I think what I would say is when people tell their stories, let's say you've got a fairly new team, engaged. But when a team begins to hear one another's stories, their background growing up, the realities in their home, and things they've had to overcome as team members begin to do the listening to what shaped this person? It has a high degree of beginning to sow the seeds of being compassionate toward one another to realize what I see today is a product of other things that have happened in their lives. If you start there, you begin with a deeper understanding and potentially respect for one another. If you start there, it's gonna be easier to go deeper and to build trust in the future. So, telling their stories is probably one of the, that's probably the most effective beginning point.  [00:21:09] Tommy Thomas:   Have The Navigators noticed any difference in maybe you as being a leader in training the generation of people that are coming through your early ranks now than say 15, 20 years ago when you broke into leadership? [00:21:23] Lindy Black: Our millennial staff they, those men and women, I believe were forerunners of changing a number of things, be moving more toward community engagement, community learning, not just me and one other person, or me and Jesus, but that they ushered in a much more partnering mode into where we currently are now. That is a good setup for Gen Z who are now graduating from college and beginning to enter the workforce. And some are entering our staff. The place where I believe we are really struggling. And how much of this is the result of the Covid years, and how much is it, would it have been this way regardless of Covid and that? I'll just call it a healthy relationship, lack of skill. When you think about The Navigators, which is a ministry life to life, if you can't carry on a conversation or initiate with a new person or have the confidence to initiate activities, those types of things,you're going to be in big trouble. So, the relational aspect and having confidence in knowing how to relate to other people, seem to be one of the biggest challenges today for sure. Now interestingly, I was just recently with a younger group of women, and as we were interacting, I found that their longing to have practical skills in life, in ministry, in all areas, practical skills, learning practical know-how was much higher than I'd noticed for the last two decades in groups of people. It seems as though they were avid learners and wanted to understand how they could better engage and become more effective in the roles they were filling.  ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:23:31] Tommy Thomas: If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?  [00:23:38] Lindy Black: Oh, my goodness. I might be at the top of that list. I don't know how much you're familiar with the Enneagram, but that has been a significant help to me, both in understanding my strengths, but also in under also in understanding the places where I need to continue to grow and mature. In Enneagram one of the words they use for that is a perfectionist.  I have a very high level of inner critic in my person of telling me things I've done wrong.  I have a twofold answer to your question.  I am always thinking how I could have done something better, how you could have done something better, how a process could be improved, and God has really used that and bless that. Now, sometimes it just gets into a gear. People are just like, couldn't we just do good? Does it always have to be changing and becoming better and better? I put that on myself, and that can be very debilitating. So that's more on the inside of me. On the outside, I think as someone is facing the reality of failure, if you think you have failed and you just press on, you take application from that, apply it to the next situation, you will more than likely miss the meat or the good part of what God would want to teach you. I'm a very firm believer that experience is not the best teacher, but an evaluated process experience is the best teacher. I think you can do that by yourself. But if I were to wave my magic wand in this arena of failure and say, what is the most needed situation, tool, or experience, and that is to have someone sit with you, ask you several just basic questions to help you understand what did you intend to do, what went well, what went poorly, what did you learn from it, and that process has helped me not be so afraid of failing because I know nobody's going to do everything perfectly, but when you do assess, evaluate what went on, oftentimes you are the richer for it, and that failure becomes far less debilitating in your own soul. [00:26:16] Tommy Thomas: Where does that come from?  [00:26:17] Lindy Black: Actually, it was a man, a staff person in The Navigators. His name is Jim, and I happened to be at a workshop he was giving on giving and receiving feedback, and because of my hunger, both to learn personally, and to help other people be learners. It was a skillset or, he just had a basic process where he could walk someone through, and they were able to answer questions. If he was present, then he could actually give them feedback. But this could be, you could walk with someone, and you didn't even have to be there when they had the experience. Just the question asking and helping them dig deeper and understand what may have been under that. I was so led up, Tommy I thought, that's been probably 25 years ago, and I have been able to both equip others but practice that where people don't even know you're actually helping them in a feedback experience or an evaluated experience. [00:27:27] Tommy Thomas: What's the most dangerous behavior or trait that you've observed that derails leaders' careers?  [00:27:33] Lindy Black: From my own vantage point, it's people who, their vulnerabilities or their weaknesses. A leader whose vulnerabilities and weaknesses have been overlooked because their strengths are so strong, they're needed, they're valued, and they can be esteemed, platformed, and pushed further on because what they're bringing is of value and ignoring their weaknesses and vulnerabilities because someone didn't have the courage to talk to them and say to them, this is my observation. Or this is how I'm perceiving you and their weaknesses are overlooked. There are a number of my peers who I believe have not been able to excel to the degree God longed for them because no one was able, it may be other people's choices or their choice to come alongside and say, this is how I experience you. I believe this is a real vulnerability. So I think weaknesses unlooked at, unchallenged, those things in their character will be the things that will be at the top of the list of derailing them.  Join us next week as we continue this conversation with Lindy Black. One of the topics we will discuss is how she got into journaling and how journaling has impacted her life.  Until then, keep doing the good work you're doing to help make the nonprofit sector more effective, sustainable, and scalable.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Navigators TrueFace - Lindy Black   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Lindy Black's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Christin McClave: I think first I would really want to understand the leader's background. The team, the person, on Shark Tank, they usually have one other person standing with them. And the Sharks are very interested in, where they came from, what their experiences are, how the two or three of them got together and the real dynamic of them working together. Our guest this week is Christin McClave.  Christin is an accomplished senior executive advisor and board member with more than 20 years of success across the manufacturing, supply chain, consumer products, and automotive industries. She began her corporate career with Johnson & Johnson. Most recently she was Chief Operating Officer for their family business Cardona Industries – a 5,000-employee global sustainable manufacturer of parts for the automotive aftermarket. Kristen led Cardone's successful exit strategy in 2019.  Since then, she's been coaching and consulting with various companies that need transformation and streamlined synergy with their people process and technology strategy.  I believe people who've led successfully in the private sector, have a lot to offer nonprofit leaders. Christin is no exception. Christin, welcome to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership.  [00:01:23] Christin McClave: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.  [00:01:27] Tommy Thomas: It's good to have you. People a lot of times will ask me, where do you find all these people? And our friend Christine at Talbot at World Vision suggested that I have you as a guest, and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.  I like to start back somewhere toward the beginning. What's your most beloved memory of your childhood?  [00:01:45] Christin McClave: Oh, wow. I'll tell you a little bit about my parents and then that'll give you some context to how I grew up. I grew up in the Philadelphia area. And my father grew up there as well and his family and eventually our family business was headquartered in Philadelphia. He went to Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma and met my mom there. They were both cheerleaders, and my mom is one of 12 who grew up on a farm in Arkansas, so we had a collision of cultures growing up, which was really wonderful. And I do believe it really set me up in a unique way to relate to a lot of different people across the country. And some of my best memories. every Thanksgiving probably until I was going to college, maybe a little bit before that, we would go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was where my grandparents eventually moved from Arkansas to Oklahoma. And a lot of my aunts and uncles lived there and I, as you can imagine, had, over 50 first cousins and we gathered every single year for Thanksgiving and just grew up together and did all kinds of amazing things with, just learning a whole different kind of way of life from our Philadelphia existence. My father is Italian, so our Italian American family in Philadelphia was a huge contrast from that. And they were both wonderful, right? The food and the vibrance and the city life that we had in Philadelphia. And then, being able to go and ride horses with my cousins and, collect the eggs from the chicken coop and build forts in the fields and do all kinds of things. My mom's family is really musical, so we would put on these shows for all the aunts and uncles and just had a really wonderful time every year, looking forward to that Thanksgiving experience.  [00:03:56] Tommy Thomas: Maybe aside, or in addition to that, what do you think is the greatest gift your parents gave you? [00:04:02] Christin McClave: Oh, wow. There are a lot of them. I think the greatest gift they gave me really has to do with understanding my unique nature. I'm the girl in between two boys, so I have an older brother and a younger brother. And I can say that they really gave me a lot of room to explore my unique personality and capabilities. And I think, in a time where they could have said, you need to go here to college, or you need to do this and that. I think they recognized from a young age that I was pretty mature and pretty driven and focused and allowed me to have some freedom. In the context of this, I went to a Christian school. We went to church a couple of times a week. Like I definitely had a lot of structure around from a Christian cultural perspective. But there were a lot of my cousins in that big cousin group, and my brothers also went to Oral Roberts University, and I just, I was really challenged and said, I really do think I need to do something different. And they really could have forced me to do that. And I ended up at the University of Alabama, which was really different and it was the right place for me because I really felt like I needed to make my own way and figure out where I stood with my faith on my own, in, the context of a secular environment.  And God really blessed that experience for me.  [00:05:41] Tommy Thomas: What was the big challenge maybe of going to a secular school like that? Do you remember your freshman year and what the challenges were?  [00:05:49] Christin McClave: Yeah, I think the major, I'll say the shock to my system in the first place was like being in an environment with around people who weren't all exactly like me, their parents had different ideas of why they were there or they had different ideas of why they were there. It wasn't focused on the spiritual aspect. And it was just a huge pool of students, the size compared to my little high school experience of 40 graduating with 45 kids going to, at that point I think, Alabama was probably 18,000. Now it's much, much bigger. And I went into the honors college, which kind of gave me a little bit more of a cocoon because it was a smaller group. But you just show up and everybody comes from different worlds, different backgrounds, different spiritual backgrounds. It was certainly in the Bible belt. You could certainly find Christian groups on campus and churches around and, a lot of people who grew up with, a Christian tradition in their family. So that in and of itself was a good stepping stone to getting out into the real world for me. But at the same time, it was a big shock in a lot of ways. Not only from a spiritual perspective and not having all those guardrails around me being in a Christian school and going to church all the time and youth group and being a leader in my youth group. But culturally for me, a lot of people are so surprised. I grew up in Philly, in the Northeast, and then heading down to the Deep South for college was a shock to a lot of people. Now it's very different. In Philly you talk to anybody whose kids are applying to colleges and all the kids, from the northeast are very interested in going to schools in the South, in the Midwest.  And it's become much more ubiquitous as a college choice.  [00:07:48] Tommy Thomas: Of all the places that one could have worked when you graduated, how did you pick Johnson & Johnson?  [00:07:54] Christin McClave: Yeah, that's a really great story. I had been working at our family business from age 13 to 20 and every summer I would rotate to a different functional area and learn a different part of the business. Cardone was our family business and we manufactured automotive parts for the aftermarket and we put them through a remanufacturing process.  It was actually recycling that we did in a different sort of way. And so, there was a lot to learn and a lot to be done. And I had a wonderful experience every summer that I worked there. But there was this inkling inside of me saying, are there women in leadership roles somewhere that I could go learn from and be mentored by and just see how they work in the world? Because we didn't really have that at our manufacturing automotive parts company, a very male-dominated environment. Which, I learned a lot through that as well for my future career. That was a really great experience. But I ended up calling my cousin, my third cousin.  She had been at Johnson & Johnson. I needed to find an internship that was close to home. Going to school in Alabama, I wanted to find something so I could be home for the summer. So, I called her, and I just said, is there any way I could apply for an internship at J&J? I'd love to learn from you, get to know you, and let me know if there's anything available. So she helped me get an internship that summer. And she just was thrilled to be helping me with that. And that led to me getting a job offer. That was my junior summer. And I got a job offer about six months later to come back full-time after I graduated.  [00:09:50] Tommy Thomas:  What do you remember about your first management role when you actually had people reporting to you? [00:09:57] Christin McClave: Yeah, I was really excited about it, honestly. Some people don't find it, to be something to look forward to. I think from my observations being at Cardone for many years and seeing some good leaders, some leaders who you can tell, like the mantle was put on them and they didn't necessarily want to be doing it, but its just, sometimes you just have to do. So, I was excited to try my hand at managing people. I guess innately I felt like that was going to be one of my strengths. And I got the interns, that was my first management experience at J&J. They're all right, your first chance is you get the interns or the, we have co-ops too, up here in Philly, we've got kids that come over from a local university, and they come for six months. So, there's the three-month interns and the six-month co-ops. I really enjoyed it. I can say, you learn very quickly that you have to build trust with them. You've gotta find ways to get them focused and moving in the right direction. And then you start thinking, oh wow, I've been getting all these performance reviews myself, and now I've gotta figure out how to give them feedback and create measurable goals and find ways to motivate them. And a really big lesson I learned at J&J, it was one of their values for all of the younger people working there, they always said,  we need people with can-do attitudes and people who take initiative. And so that was always something that I learned right away when I was acting in those respects. I got a lot of praise and opportunities and a lot of respect and promotions because that was really something I was like, oh, that's really important to them. And that's something I certainly, thrive in an environment where I can take initiative and go after things and come be creative and come up with new ideas. So that was really something that I really tried to bring to, managing these interns and co-ops and passing that along to them. [00:12:08] Tommy Thomas: Did you find at J&J, a group of women mentors and people that could take you on down the road?  [00:12:14] Christin McClave: Yes, I did. My cousin Lisa, who's still at J&J, she's in her early sixties now. She's thinking about retirement in the next few years. But we are regularly having mentor conversations. And the cool thing is, I'm at the point where I can also give her some advice. It's almost like a circle, a reversal, a full circle of mentorship and coaching that she and I have. There are times when she calls me and asks me for advice now, which is really exciting.  I can think of about five other women who were either in manager, director, or VP level roles at J&J back in the late ‘90s – early 2000's.  They were trailblazers in so many ways. Two of them were sharing a job in a manager role, which was very unique, in the office world and all that we were dealing with. Now we get a lot more flexibility, but there was not a lot of flexibility with how they all had to present themselves. And a couple of them were having babies and trying to lead and be great mentors for me and I was ended up in the women's leadership program there and I came up through IT and in the IT leadership program. And it was just a wonderful place for me to learn, to get trained, mentored, and developed. I got so much really solid manager training when I first started there. And I hope young people today are getting that type of mentoring and training and coaching and development that I did. And I always say that's  one huge benefit to going to a big company when you first start your career is to really, suck all of that in, take it all in, and really just be a sponge for what you can learn and grow and see. Now granted, we were in the office every day, so I'm not so sure how that's all translating in the same respect that it was when I was in the office versus being on a screen with your managers and leaders.  And I think we have yet to find out, the impact of all of that. [00:14:33] Tommy Thomas:  You've been through a lot of leadership roles, both at J&J and then in your family business. At what point did you begin to know yourself well enough to know what to look for in leadership?  [00:14:45] Christin McClave: Yeah, I, oh boy. Every leadership role I've had has been so different. And I know just from the experience of having challenging roles and other roles where I was very supported as a leader by my either CEO or whatever the team surrounding me. And knowing that there are varying degrees of whether you can be successful or not, or what kind of support you need. And so I think, if I would choose what my next leadership role would be, the ideal situation for me is really having the trust and support and belief that whoever the leader is, if it's the CEO, if I'm the CEO, if I'm a C-level executive or just in some other leadership role, that there's solid support ahead of me in that, from a board perspective.  Having that trust and relationship with the board is really important regardless of whatever role you're in a senior leadership role, it's important to really try to build some bridges and relationships with whatever board is in place. If it's the ownership in a family business, having that trust and being trusted by the board and the owner is really important. And them really trusting that you can make the right decisions about deciding who's on the team and who is giving you the autonomy to make those decisions. That's one thing in my career. Over time I have become so much better at like really understanding, talent, skillsets, and experience, and really combining all of the assessment of all of the talent, the different pieces of talent for leadership. And I have a pretty good track record at this point of being able to piece together a leadership team or really understand where the holes and gaps are, if it's the governance process because of my experience on a variety of boards, if it's the leadership team inside the company or the organization. And one of my passions is really around assembling a great leadership team or a great board and finding ways to build that out. That's one thing I really enjoy doing. So sometimes I come in and I know that things are not perfect, which they never are. Right?  No organization is perfect, but one of my passions and something that I really enjoy doing is seeing where the holes in the gaps are and finding ways to help bolster the organization and help them find the right talent to bring to the table to be successful. [00:17:40] Tommy Thomas: It's been said that we probably learned most from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:17:47] Christin McClave: I think we have built these structures, and I'll use an example, these systems in our organizations such as the performance management process, right? I've built so many of those and or tweaked so many of those, or I've been building the technology to automate those things. And we're always striving for this perfect situation where, we have the corporate goals and then we're going to cascade them and we're going to have KPIs and everybody's going to put their goals in and their personal goals. And we've got a team goal, and we build these very complex systems and structures, which are extrinsically and intrinsically driving us to some type of perfect state. It's an equation, right? Then it's going to equal perfection. We all know that just has not ever happened one time in the world. We can say that across the board in nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, any type, churches, whatever it is, we know it never works. And so, I think the venture capital space, the entrepreneurial space they've done a much better job of highlighting failure and really using failure anecdotes and case studies to really show and normalize that it's okay to fail. And actually, you learn so much and we talk a lot about growth mindset. That's really what triggers the learning and the growing and the changing and it's our whole system. Even when you even look beyond organizations, you look at our government, and our economy and how much failure isn't really celebrated or recognized. And it should be. And I'm happy to see that we see a lot more out there, a lot more experiences and biographies and people interviewed about failure and it's really tough though. When you come through all of our systems like high school and college and you take the SATs and then you've got college and then you've got your master's and you're driving towards some sort of if I only do this, then that's going to equal a better outcome and it's just gonna keep building on it. And we all know there is failure and imperfectness in this world, and it's really an impossible thing to strive for and we can learn so much from our failures.  [00:20:18] Tommy Thomas: So you mentioned the venture capital world. I'm a big fan of Bob Tiede's blog - Leading with Questions. Last week, he had a guest guy on there, and the guy talked about what if there was a nonprofit version of Shark Tank? And I thought, then that'd be a good question. What if there was a nonprofit version of something like Shark Tank and you were one of the judges, or you were one of the people that was going to be giving some early-stage investment capital? What questions would you want to be answered before opening your checkbook?  [00:20:48] Christin McClave: Oh, that's a fun question. I think first of all I would really want to understand the leader's background. The team, the person, on Shark Tank, usually has one other person standing with them. And the Sharks are very interested in, where they came from, their experiences, how the two or the three of them got together and the real dynamic of them working together, and what skills maybe one brings to the table, the other one fills in the gaps. I'd like to really understand that and know that there's some experience they're building an organization. I think the other piece to that is really the passion, the drive. What is the problem or the issue founder or those co-founders are trying to solve and what's driving that? And is that passion or is that issue really going to still be driving them in five years or 10 years? Is it something, or is it, more of a short-term thing? The other piece, and I think this probably comes from my experience on nonprofit boards that are probably larger than this would be, but really understanding the percentage of the budget that would actually be going to the work, the problem solving, the issue resolution, and what percentage of the budget would really be, going to administration and or SG&A, or overhead, however you want to say it. And that may not be important for everybody, all investors, but for me it's the piece that I enjoy digging into from a financial perspective and from an accountability perspective with nonprofits that I either work with or talk to and just understanding, are they managing that equation or that ratio. And also, as they get larger, they will certainly have donors, investors, and fundraising questions around that in particular. And I think the third thing I would say is who is mentoring them? How do they have support built around them? If maybe they're an early-stage company, they probably don't have a board yet. But I think in the nonprofit context, it's really important to know those things and to make sure there are people that they've built into their feedback process. Maybe it's just a monthly advisor call if they have, or maybe an advisor or a few advisors meet with them on a regular basis because the challenge with a nonprofit, is really thinking through your revenue source. If your revenue is not coming from a product or a service, it's coming from the fundraising donation side of things. You've really got to build out some people in your network who can help you strategize about that and become good at that. And I'll say just from personal experience, that's part of why I haven't taken on a leadership role in a nonprofit yet in my career because I feel like you have to feel called to the issue or the problem at hand. If you're going to be in a senior role in a not-for-profit organization, you've really got to have a drive and a passion for that cause.  And, number two, you've got to really understand the revenue source is very different in the nonprofit space. And you really have to think about okay, we're raising money for this cause rather than, hey, this product has this gross margin and this and that. It's a whole different mindset shift. And maybe someday I will, but for right now I'm in the for-profit space. But I love supporting and being a mentor and advisor in the nonprofit space and supporting them as much as I can.  [00:24:47] Tommy Thomas:  I would be remiss if I didn't ask you at least one question about your family business because it has been a part of the American automotive landscape for sure. And I'll start, maybe we'll go into it from a risk perspective. I read a quote from this guy, Frederick Wilcox says progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first. A company didn't achieve the size that Cardone did without taking some risk along the way. From your perspective, what's the biggest risk y'all took and lessons learned from it? [00:25:16] Christin McClave:  Yeah, lots and lots of risks had to be taken for sure. The biggest risk that we took as a company and as a family was really moving production to Mexico. In the earlier 2000's we started that process and we had to make a decision, when you're going and talking to banks and giving your strategy about financing for different projects. We were the lone ranger in the space at the size we were and at our height we had about 6,000 employees. If you think about the sheer size of having to build production facilities or distribution facilities and spread that out outside of Philadelphia, we also had to think through our global competition. And at that time, we might have had one competitor, smaller competitor that was manufacturing in the US but pretty much most of our competition was overseas in Asia, China, and Mexico. And so, anytime we would approach the bank and talk about these projects they would always wonder why we weren't in Mexico or China. It was a huge risk when we took it. but over time, we really built a wonderful team in Mexico, and we were able to bring a lot of our cultural elements there. Our company was built on Christian values and the Mexican people are very religious and very devout people to their faith.  God certainly planted that opportunity into our hands.  Tommy Thomas: Our guest next week will be Lindy Black. Most recently the Associate US Director at The Navigators, her leadership abilities were recognized early by The Navigators. She was the first female on the executive leadership team and has played a significant role in leader development at The Navigators.  Throughout the conversation, you'll hear the thread of listening and learning. Here she is responding to my question about the first time she led a staff team. [00:27:17] Lindy Black:  My first team that I led had four men on it, and they were all older than me and they had more experience than me. So, the first tangible emotion that came to mind is I was nervous, and I felt insecure. Now, many years later, I read the best article on leading people who know more than you do. What I was learning in that early first management was that I needed to lean into the expertise and actually the greater knowledge of my teammates. And in doing that, not only was I learning, but it gave me an opportunity to affirm and encourage their development in what they were bringing.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Family Business Magazine - Christin Cardone McClave Philadelphia Business Journal - Christin McClave   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Christin McClave's LinkedIn Profile  

Today on the Ether we have the Console AMA. You'll hear from castig.eth, tidus.eth, Evan15, Mika Black, Tommy Thomas, and more! Recorded on March 6th 2023. If you enjoy the music at the end of the episodes, you can find the albums streaming on Spotify, and the rest of your favorite streaming platforms. Check out Project Survival, Virus Diaries, and Plan B wherever you get your music. Thank you to everyone in the community who supports TerraSpaces.