Since strategic choices can be wrong, your leadership team should test and assess your strategy frequently. Here are three ways to do this.

When these ingredients are combined in the right order and amount, your organization is guaranteed to grow its impact.

This 20-second quiz about the health of your leadership team can predict the likelihood that your org is growing or declining.

Are you harnessing the power of start and finish lines in your organization? If not, you should try launching Quarterly Themes.

Without a mechanism (metal detector) to get feedback (treasure) from your stakeholders (grains of sand), you risk letting the very ideas that could transform your organization remain buried.

When working properly, the organizational vascular system is complex enough to circulate information to the extremities, but simple enough that it doesn’t distract from the work.

Because roles often communicate status, people tend to obsess over role clarity and completely miss the importance of function clarity. But for people who are interested in organizational health, functions are waaay more important to understand and map out than roles.

Just because you're intentionally motivating your team doesn't mean you're not unintentionally demotivating them.

Imagine you were building a new home, and you discovered that 70% of your materials were wrong. Would you just keep building and hope for the best?

Most essential business processes rely on several teams to coordinate and cooperate. When teams optimize the process for their part rather than the whole, those core processes can break down.

It’s easy for organizations to jump straight into planning. It’s practical. It’s concrete. And it feels like progress. But your planning will not be productive without a strategy.

Whenever I hear people use terms like, “core purpose,” “core values,” or “core competencies,” I always think of an apple core. Not because I have some deep analogy in mind. I’m just hungry a lot. But defining these core elements of your organization is critical for health and growth.

I’ve known several nonprofit leaders who were worried that their new strategic plan would not be implemented. That it would “sit on a shelf” and not show up in the daily activities of the teams who needed to implement it. Their solution: add the word “execution” to the title of the document.

I love this method because it’s simple, practical, and repeatable - which makes it easy to establish as a norm on any team. But it’s also brutal in its ability to push teams into confronting deep issues they’ve been avoiding for too long.

Nonprofit leadership lessons from my mom's blend of strength and warmth. Leadership requires balancing courage, competence, integrity, and foresight (strength) with behaviors that foster trust, involvement, respect, and support (warmth). This combination helps everyone know that you are for them, and that you’re capable of supporting their success.

Boost your nonprofit's potential with self-awareness. Discover how a simple question to stakeholders can magically improve your insights and fuel transformation in your organization.

Explore how nostalgia can help combat change fatigue in nonprofits. Learn about creating safe spaces for processing change-related emotions and implementing nostalgia rituals to alleviate stress and foster transparency. A powerful tool for change management in your organization.

Discover the power of perspective in problem-solving for nonprofit leaders. Learn how shifting your viewpoint can inspire empathy and encourage innovative solutions for your organization's challenges.

Learn how transparency can transform your nonprofit organization. Candor and accountability are not easy to achieve, but they are critical for boosting morale and fostering a healthy culture, and discover ways to ensure optimal performance and trust.

Unlock the power of system archetypes to navigate complex nonprofit challenges. Learn about common archetypes like 'Limits To Growth', 'Addiction', and 'Eroding Goals' to enhance your problem-solving skills and improve organizational efficiency.