Nonprofit Workplaces

DAN MCGINN: Welcome to Dear HBR: from Harvard Business Review. I’m Dan McGinn.

ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Work can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. We don’t need to let the conflicts get us down.

DAN MCGINN: That’s where Dear HBR: comes in. We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts and help you move forward. Today we’re answering questions from workers at nonprofits with Joan Garry. She’s a former executive and advises nonprofit leaders. Joan, thanks for coming on the show.

JOAN GARRY: Hey, I’m delighted to be here.

ALISON BEARD: How are nonprofit workplaces different than for-profit ones?

JOAN GARRY: Great question. One is that people come to work at nonprofits because they are passionate about the mission. At the end of the day when you work at a nonprofit, you’re not motivated by that big fat year-end bonus because it ain’t coming. If I’m not going to get paid a lot, I really want a voice in how this organization moves towards its mission. But I come expecting to have one and that’s valuable to me.

DAN MCGINN: But Joan, aren’t workplace problems the same everywhere?

JOAN GARRY: Many of them are, Dan, right. You get, can have a lousy boss regardless of where you work I suppose. Someone who manages people well is someone who could manage people well in corporate or a nonprofit. It’s just that the environments are somewhat different.

ALISON BEARD: OK. Let’s go to the first question. Dear HBR: I work for a small, but financially healthy nonprofit. About 40 people work at our organization and we’re going through a lot of transitions. My supervisor is leaving and there’s no plan to replace her for at least four months. That’s because our executive director is also leaving. The plan is to let the new director hire my boss’s replacement. To be clear she never really supervised my work. For the most part, I chose my own projects and only went to her for a thumbs up after the fact. I don’t want her job, but I do want more seniority and money. I prefer to transition from my current role into one that’s more appropriate to my skills and experience. What should I do in the coming months if I’m called on to do tasks that my supervisor used to do? I definitely don’t want to do her work for less money than she was getting, but can I use that to negotiate what I want? I don’t think the outgoing executive director would create a more senior position for me. She probably won’t make any big organizational changes before she goes, but I would like to set myself up for a promotion. Would doing some of my former boss’s work during this period help me get there?

JOAN GARRY: OK, so, one could argue that doing extra work can set you up for a promotion. That if I overperform that people are going to say wow, that person is really a rock star. But here you have a situation where you’ve got an ED who’s a bit of a lame duck.

ALISON BEARD: So, currently there’s no one really to impress who’s going to determine her future.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah, but I do think that there’s some value in impressing your outgoing ED. So, the ED’s quacking, right? I mean what I like to see is when an ED is leaving, I like the ED to put something down on paper about the organization from his or her point of view. What do you see? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current staff? What are some of the challenges and the opportunities? And I think the writer really, she has to really think about what does that ED write on a piece of paper about you either to the staff or the board or to the incoming executive director? because if the transition is smooth and it’s working well, and I’m the new ED that’s coming in, I’m going to go to that old ED and say, tell me about the pluses and minuses of all your staff.

DAN MCGINN: This would still require quite a bit of patience though wouldn’t it in the sense that the new executive director is going to arrive, there’s going to be a lag before the new supervisor is hired.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah, you know, one of the things she might want to think about is going to the ED and saying look, we’ve got this gap and I’m really interested in growing into that, or helping, I want to help out. I want to make this transition as smooth as possible. Here are the kinds of things that I would suggest we tackle and here’s some of the things I would do, and here’s how I would imagine that would fit in with my current workload. And maybe we could talk about whether either something else comes off my plate, or you, maybe we talk about a little interim compensation for that. But I also think that this particular employee doesn’t, wants to do a different job in the organization and has to be thinking about OK, what position in the organization would be really helpful to me in order to develop the skills that would make me an ideal candidate for another job in the organization?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, I mean I agree. I think this is a really great opportunity for job crafting. She can look at all of the things that her boss was doing and cherry-pick the things that would get her to the next level by demonstrating that she can do them and then suggest to the outgoing executive director that she do it.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah. So, what she could do in that cherry-picking process is cherry-pick a particular project and say, this is something that’s going to fall through the cracks. Why don’t I take this and run with it? We’ll set up some guidelines and some goals, but let me just go with it. It will help you and it will also, it will be something that will be a professional development opportunity for me.

DAN MCGINN: So, part of what I’m hearing here is that in order to do that she probably needs to step up and do some of this outgoing supervisor’s work in this interim period. She says directly, she doesn’t want to do that person’s work for her current salary. She wants to try and negotiate. Is that a smart strategy to try and grab value during this transition time?

ALISON BEARD: So, this made me think of a piece that we ran by Debbie Kolb and she talks about yes and negotiations. You say, yes I want to do all these things for you and I’m hoping that X, Y, or Z will come of it. Joan, you mentioned a one-time small bonus. Maybe it’s extra time off to pursue training that she’d like to do to get this next promotion. Let’s talk about what’s in it for me.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah, I, Alison, I think that’s a completely legit strategy. I would only add that there’s a layer here. We have to remember that in a nonprofit organization, the ED is slightly different from a CEO in the sense that they are a leader. They’re the external voice. They’re the person that most people see when they don’t make big donations. And that when someone announces that they’re leaving, the boat gets really rocky. And the board ends up having to hire someone new and they have to step in, in a way that they haven’t before. And so, there is a lot of anxiety in an organization during a transition like this in a nonprofit organization. And a fear that the transition may result in hey, you know what? I’m going to hold back on my donation until I see who you hire. And so, there’s a little bit of limbo around money during a transition and I think she has to be really conscious of that.

ALISON BEARD: What about just a title change? Is that something that an executive director of a nonprofit who’s a lame duck could do?

JOAN GARRY: Only if that title change makes sense in the chart of that organizational chart. Giving somebody a new title, oh my gosh, the ripple effects that that has in an organization, is why didn’t I get a, why did they get it and I didn’t? The only thing that would be worse is to give the person a better office. [LAUGHTER] And then the whole thing implodes. Right?

DAN MCGINN: Let me throw one curveball here.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah, go.

DAN MCGINN: We are assuming that whoever this new executive director is that he or she will come from outside the organization. Is there any chance that the new executive director might be somebody who already works there, in which case this person won’t be starting from scratch? She’ll have some credibility. She’ll probably have a relationship. There will be an observation of her competence and her performance and that the situation might be slightly different if it’s an internal hire?

JOAN GARRY: Oh yeah, Dan, from your lips. Would that more nonprofits had a leadership pipeline and succession planning in place, but so many do not. They just don’t think that way, or they have a number two who’s the COO and that person is more like an inside person, but they’re not the person that’s going to inspire at the gala. And so, we have a big problem in terms of succession planning in the sector in general for the colleagues who used to be colleagues and are now employees of that person. You guys know that that’s, those dynamics are hard.

DAN MCGINN: So, in this situation, our listener might be advantaged if they did go with an internal hire, even if it’s an unlikely outcome, there’s at least odds that something might happen more quickly if that were to happen?

JOAN GARRY: That could be a good thing. I guess could be a bad thing if the new ED comes in with a lot of preconceived notions about her. It could be my dealings with her, she doesn’t play very well in the sandbox and when I needed something she never responded to my emails. So, it depends on what the relationship is like and whether there are predispositions that were to her favor, or to her disadvantage.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. I mean, whether the new ED comes from the inside or the outside, I feel like it would really behoove our letter writer to get to know whoever this person is as soon as she possibly can. Maybe even get involved in the interviewing process. Is that possible at her level?

JOAN GARRY: Ha, ha, ha, ha. Staff members involved in interviewing their bosses, now there’s a sticky wicket. [LAUGHTER] I would, I think I would keep my nose to the grindstone in that organization. Me? I would demonstrate, try to demonstrate myself as damn irreplaceable in the organization so that I am seen as central to the success of the organization, to the new ED, whether that’s an internal person or an external person.

ALISON BEARD: That makes sense. One more question. Fast forward four months. The new executive director comes in, has introduced him or herself to the staff. How should our letter writer make the best possible first impression?

JOAN GARRY: Make sure that there’s some one-on-one time with the new ED where that person says things like, I’ve been at this organization for X years and I have to say, I just, I love the mission of this organization. I’m driven to it for very personal reasons, yadda, yadda, yadda. This is the job that I have and I do a very good job at it. I like it very much. As you are thinking about the world ahead for you, it might be helpful for you to know that I’m very interested in growing my skills in this area, or that area. Whatever it might be, and I’d be very interested in talking to you as you get your lay of the land about how I might make that kind of shift. Because that’s an area of real interest for me in terms of my skills and expertise.

DAN MCGINN: Good. So, Alison, what’s our wrap-up on this?

ALISON BEARD: So, first we think our letter writer should consider whether she is deeply committed to this organization and passionate about it. We think that she should prove to the outgoing executive director that she is a valuable employee so that that person will recommend her to the new leader. One thing she could do is talk to the current ED and see if there’re particular tasks and projects that her former boss was doing that she could take on that will position her to rise into the role that she wants. Maybe she could approach this as a yes and negotiation. You know, exploring options for potential rewards for that extra work. Ultimately we want her to prove that she is irreplaceable both with all the people she currently works with and with the incoming executive director when he or she arrives.

DAN MCGINN: All right. Here we go. Dear HBR: I started my job at a nonprofit nine months ago and much of my team works remotely. My director says I need to be better at following guidelines and processes. I agree with that and I’ve reached out to HR multiple times. I even read through their guidelines on work process and orientations. But it’s all pretty general. I asked my director for more detail. She says it’s normal for some things to be ad hoc. That I need to be adaptable. I’ve also asked both my manager and director about the long term goals of my project. Both have said that our goals are vague since they depend on which grants are available. They assure me the project is building value for the organization, but they’re unclear about who in the organization it will support, or what my work will look like in six months even though there is funding further out. I’m beginning to find my job discouraging and isolating. At other times they’ve said I need to do a better job of building value for the organization. I’ve identified a way that my report could help generate publicity and funding for a colleagues project, but they both seem apprehensive and I’m not sure why. I’m wondering if it’s because that work is in a different department. Sometimes I want to stay and work through these challenges so I can show what I have built or improved. Other times I want to leave. However, I was only at my last job for about a year too. Should I stay? Is this what it means to pay your dues? Is this frustration a natural part of mid-career work, or am I too ambitious? How should I set myself up for the career growth I desire?

JOAN GARRY: Did you say this was one question? [LAUGHTER]

DAN MCGINN: Many questions to this one. Joan, what’s your initial reaction?

JOAN GARRY: There are so many things that triggered me in these series of questions. The first one is goals, structure, strategies.

ALISON BEARD: He seems unclear on what they are.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah, and that doesn’t surprise me and that’s a deficit in the sector. That nonprofits are kind of notorious for being a little short on structure. And I love the phrase, what did the person say? Adaptable. Ad hoc is good. That they know the code for that is nimble. So, if I want to get out of the way of saying, well we don’t actually have goals and strategies. I say, well we really have to be ad hoc and nimble.

ALISON BEARD: But the strangest thing is he’s also getting mixed messages because he’s told that he needs to be better at following the guidelines and processes.

JOAN GARRY: Yeah. I’m not sure what’s happening here, but I do think that people in nonprofits are not hardwired always to think in terms of goals, strategies, and tactics. That also has to do with a little bit of that sort of mission passion as well. The thing that also connects to that is this sentence, now some sentence you raised Dan, that said something about the goals being vague, depending on what grants are available. This is in the nonprofit world a big fat red flag on the field. Oftentimes because nonprofits are hungry for resources, they will follow the money and do what the funders ask them to do even if it’s off mission. So, part of me, what I’m hearing in all of this, is that this organization needs to be clearer about its long term strategy and the goals and tactics that go with it, and they need to communicate that really carefully, not just to this gentleman, but to everybody that works in the organization.

ALISON BEARD: How can someone at his level prod the organization to do that?

JOAN GARRY: I’m glad you asked that question, Alison. Because I feel that I’m hearing a certain passivity in the question.

ALISON BEARD: Oh, I think he’s being proactive. He’s constantly asking his boss, his director, HR what he should be doing, how he should be doing it, and why he should be doing it. And he doesn’t seem to be getting any answers.

JOAN GARRY: He may be knocking and no one’s home. But what do you think Alison? If he were to actually draft something, but says based on my job and based on where I think the organization’s going, here’s where I think I could have the greatest impact and here’s some draft goals I have for 2020, or 2021, or whatever year it is, and let’s talk about those.

ALISON BEARD: I think that’s a much better way of being proactive.

DAN MCGINN: One of the things he mentions about the problems he’s having at the old job is that he finds it isolating. He also mentions that most of his team works remotely. I wonder if geography is an issue here in terms of the lack of communication, the lack of clarity. They all sort of seem to be off doing their own thing. Did those parts of the letter raise any red flags for you?

JOAN GARRY: Indeed they did actually. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of cross-pollination. If I feel like I’m in my cubicle doing my thing and I don’t really understand how it intersects with what Mary’s doing down the hall, that’s, that is a recipe for isolation. The second thing is remote. Nonprofit leaders are not just managers. They are champions for a cause. And it is not enough for them only to ignite the passions of donors, prospective board members, volunteers. They have to do that with their very own staff. And it is much harder to do that when my staff member is in San Francisco and I’m in New York. So, that ED has to work harder, because folks are remote, to create that sense that everybody is in it together and that the work has serious meaning and purpose, and to ignite that in each and every employee.

ALISON BEARD: Can our letter writer help do that with his colleagues in the absence of leadership from the executive director?

JOAN GARRY: I do believe that there are people within organizations that can fill that role. There’s a fine line and I bet you would agree with me of filling that role to such an extent that it accentuates a deficit in the leader.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And it’s hard to do when, as in this case, you actually don’t really understand what the overarching strategy is.

DAN MCGINN: So, it sounds like we’re leaning towards the conclusion that this organization is not very well run and that if that continues to be irritating to him, maybe another organization would be a better fit. Is that where we’re going here?

JOAN GARRY: Yep.

DAN MCGINN: He’s only spent a year at his last job. He’s only spent nine months at this job. Should that be a reason for him to stick around because he doesn’t want to be perceived as a job-hopper?

JOAN GARRY: I’m going to guess that on some episode of this show, you have addressed the issue of bouncing employees.

ALISON BEARD: Yes, that was episode twenty– No, I don’t know what episode it was! [LAUGHING]

JOAN GARRY: Don’t you think that the issue of bouncing employees is very different today from what it was, say, ten years ago?

DAN MCGINN: I do, especially if you can tell a good story about the jumps.

ALISON BEARD: But what should he do better next time? Figure out whether the nonprofit is healthy, led well?

DAN MCGINN: Or, if he should even be in a nonprofit in the first place.

ALISON BEARD: Right.

JOAN GARRY: Well, I would have this gentleman make a list for himself. If he wants to say, I want to be in a work environment where I’m making a difference, where I’m out of the stands and I am onto the field, then I would encourage that person to say, what are the issues you really need to care about? Find three or four of them and then go look at the organizations that lead in those arenas and start to learn about them.

ALISON BEARD: So, Dan, what are we telling him?

DAN MCGINN: So, first we empathize with him. It sounds like he’s in a place that’s not superbly run, that there’s not great communication, not a lot of clarity around goals or strategy. This is not uncommon in the nonprofit world. There might be some things he can do to try to proactively move the agenda. He could write some of his own goals for the here and present them to the executive director. He could try to stop just asking questions for clarity and making suggestions to try to get some movement towards what he needs. He may also want to think about whether this is the right organization for him. There may be a case that this is just a bad fit. He is concerned about job hopping. He was at his last job a year. He’s been at this one nine months, but as long as he has a clear reason for leaving, this is a good time to look for a new opportunity.

ALISON BEARD: Dear HBR: I’m a grant writer in the nonprofit sector. I find it difficult to introduce myself and my work, especially if I’m talking with people who are not in my field. Recently a research scientist asked me what my job was. I said, I’m a grant writer in the nonprofit sector and I help nonprofits from different fields build their grant programs. She looked unimpressed. She just said, Oh, okay. And the conversation moved on. Is this my fault for not properly introducing myself, or did she feel like my job wasn’t worth learning about because her work is more technical a niche than mine is? How much detail should I go into about my job? When I meet somebody, what’s the best way to introduce myself and my work? I don’t want to undersell myself, but I also don’t want to sound like I’m bragging.

JOAN GARRY: I’m gobsmacked by this question.

ALISON BEARD: Why?

JOAN GARRY: Well, I don’t understand why this woman is not just absolutely bursting with pride about her job?

ALISON BEARD: I think she’s worried about boring people, or I don’t know. She just sounds like someone who’s shy and introverted, maybe a little bit socially awkward who just doesn’t know how to explain what she does in a confident, but still personable way.

JOAN GARRY: So, maybe she should channel her inner eight-year-old self and comes home from school over the moon, enthusiastic. We’re raising, I’m so excited mom. We’re raising money because we just found out that one of the kids in our class has Type 1 Diabetes and we’re going to have a fundraiser. And we’re going to raise money for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

ALISON BEARD: Well, I think what you’re getting at is both enthusiasm but also specificity. If she’s so vague about what she does, that no one has questions to ask unless they’re a gifted conversationalist.

JOAN GARRY: Right. I want this person to say, so here’s the deal research scientist you are. Here’s what I do. I work for a nonprofit that does blah, blah, blah and blah. I’m really deeply committed to it and my job is to put gas in the tank of this nonprofit. That I feel such a sense of pride, when I secure a gift or a grant that I am providing fuel to my organization to move closer to a cure; closer to educating the world about LGBT people; closer to raising an issue that might change a law. That I’m not on the frontlines actually doing the work, but without my work, they can’t do the important work our organization does.

DAN MCGINN: I felt like I wanted some like anthem music in the background as you were sort of reaching the climax there. [LAUGHING]

ALISON BEARD: But it did start to sound a little braggy.

DAN MCGINN: And preachy. Yeah, like I —

JOAN GARRY: Well, OK. So, wait a minute. Wait. Now, so OK. I don’t think she should feel for one second that she’s bragging about herself, but she should brag like hell about her organization. Part of what I’m hearing about this is a reticence to talk about what fundraising is really about. That it’s noble. You’re not a used car salesman. You’re not trying to take a wrench to somebody’s wallet. And I think that she needs to own the power and the nobility of her job and that she would be much more comfortable talking about what she does.

DAN MCGINN: So, Joan, it sounds like she might not work for one single nonprofit, but she might represent a variety of them. How does she talk about that?

JOAN GARRY: I think that gives her more to talk about, I actually think that gives her a lot to talk about. I help nonprofits raise money for the good work that they do. And what I love about what I do is I cover a lot of ground. So, I’ve written grants for this organization, this organization and this organization. It’s really enriched me about the problems our society faces and it makes me feel like I’m part of the solution. And the way that I do that is I research those organizations and then I write what I think are really valuable case statements for funding. And I find that to be incredibly rewarding.

ALISON BEARD: I think the fact that she works for multiple nonprofits is also an asset because I do think that you run the risk, if you work for one, of announcing your cause and then having the person you’re talking to not believe in the same thing or support different things, but she has this opportunity to find a commonality which is the best way to start a conversation. I worked for Children’s Hospital and then I worked for GLAAD and then I worked for you know, and just this range of organizations so that somewhere, she’ll find that spark.

JOAN GARRY: Yes. One of the things that your comment Alison raises for me is that there are so many people who are touched by the nonprofit sector, either as employees or volunteers or staff members, or board members, or people who are touched by the work who are LGBT people, or immigrants or people who have a particular disease. It can actually be an opening to a conversation that becomes really, really enriching for both of them.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. We should talk about the fact that also that this research scientist sounds like a terrible person because a research scientist should understand raising money and start asking questions. So, I don’t think she should be put off by this one interaction, in particular, she should understand that some people just aren’t good conversationalists. And part of the way to be a good conversationalist is to ask questions of the other person.

JOAN GARRY: Completely right, and I think she could actually ask that question. I’ve worked for these organizations. Do you have any connection to any of these organizations in any way, shape or form?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah.

DAN MCGINN: Let me go in the opposite direction. [LAUGHTER] I wonder if she might just lower her expectations a little bit about people’s obligation to be super interested in her work. I’m not super interested in the research sciences, so if somebody told me they were research scientists I might say, Oh great. How about the Red Sox? [LAUGHTER] There’s a school of thought that Americans talk way too much about their jobs and at cocktail parties, the question, What do you do? comes up much too early. Maybe she needs to just sort of guide conversations away from work if the person might not be interested in what she’s doing.

ALISON BEARD: I think conversations about work are natural at a networking event, but I think the problem is it often stops at, Oh, what do you do? And then people are at a loss for how to continue the conversation if they don’t actually know anything about that field. We have a contributor, Dorie Clark, who has written lots of pieces about networking for us and one of her suggestions is to just have some interesting questions ready. Like, Oh, what’s the coolest thing you’re working on right now?

JOAN GARRY: Yes.

ALISON BEARD: How do you spend most of your time at work? And so, if you just have this menu of options that you can use to get people engaged in talking and then hopefully they’ll reciprocate.

JOAN GARRY:  Dampen down expectations, maybe, Dan. But I think that everybody who works in a nonprofit has to think of themselves as an ambassador. Not like a crazy evangelist necessarily, not that those two words always go together. But I think she’s missing an opportunity that could actually connect that research scientist to the work that she does. And it’s part and parcel of being a person who lives in the nonprofit space to share what organizations do to make the world a better place. Why they care about them as a way of potentially opening someone’s eyes and potentially to invite them to know more and do more for an organization that they hear about that resonates for them.

DAN MCGINN: So, what’s our advice, Alison?

ALISON BEARD: So, first we just want her to start with pride. She’s doing important work and she should think about why she cares about these nonprofit organizations that she works for and why raising money for them is so critical. We want her to own the nobility of her job. We also think the fact that she works for multiple nonprofits is an asset. She can talk about many of them and that’s a way to find commonalities with the people that she’s meeting. Some people that she meets will definitely be conversational duds, but we think that she can engage with them by asking open-ended questions, not just what do you do, but what do you love about your work? What’s your coolest project? And hopefully, that will pave the way to a two-way conversation and connect other people’s work with what she does. That will make for better, more engaging conversations.

DAN MCGINN: Joan, thanks for being on the show.

JOAN GARRY: I enjoyed it very much and I’m really happy for the invitation.

DAN MCGINN: That’s Joan Garry. She runs the Nonprofit Leadership Lab. Thanks to the listeners who wrote us with their questions. Now we want to know your questions. Send us an email with your workplace challenge and how we can help. The email address is DearHBR@HBR.org. On our next episode, we’re talking with Claudio Fernández-Aráoz about career crossroads.

CLAUDIO FERNÁNDEZ-ARÁOZ: Money’s not the driver. Usually, it’s either a bad boss or they’re no longer learning. They see no prospects for growth.

DAN MCGINN: I’m Dan McGinn.

ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Thanks for listening to Dear HBR:.