The Bamboo Project Blog

What's Going on Out There?

You know how after you spend a lot of time inside, you start to get a little bit of a headache and you feel claustrophobic? That's how I'm feeling right now. Have to take a break from the 6 Boxes and start seeing what the other kids are up to outside. . . So some posts to see what's going on in the world.

Scott Schmedel has some interesting things to say about "the new retirement" and how people who've made a great living with their business skills are now bringing those to the non-profit sector. I'm on the tail end of the Baby Boom, by some measures an "X-er," but I have friends who are already talking about getting out of the rat race and giving back in their next life. Could take not-for-profits to a whole new level.

I found this article, though, when I found 2 NonProfits, an organization that helps business professionals transition to the non-profit world. Some interesting stuff there. Good resources that I want to spend some more time exploring.

The Million Dollar Question

One final thing (for now) on expectations.  . . . (And this is for the NPOs that have to deal with going after grant dollars, particularly from government, where there are major strings attached to every gift)

Earlier, we talked about what I call Whore to the System Syndrome a well-known but here-to-fore unnamed malady that afflicts many NPOs. This is the course of the disease:

Somebody lets you know that a funding opportunity is out on the street. You think, "great, it helps the people we work with, kind of does what we do, let's go for it." So you do. The whole place gets frantic with writing the proposal, running around trying to find partners, figuring out the budget and how many people you'll serve with what services. It's crazy. But you get it into FedEx (five copies) on-time. You also meet the e-mail deadline. Then you wait. Could be 3 months, could be six. Whatever. It's a while.

Ultimately, great news! You get the money. Yeah! Happy days are here! You hire staff, buy equipment, set up your linkages with everyone. Things look great.

Then you start providing services. And you start looking at what's expected of you in providing those services. And all of a sudden you realize that to give the funder the results they want, it may not be in the best interest of your clients. In fact, it may cause you to do things like serve people who are LESS needy because they are more likely to help you get your outcomes. Or you compromise on the quality of the services because it's quantity that counts. Or you make people jump through a million hoops because the funding source says they have to (for monitoring purposes of course), even if you know, in your heart of hearts, that it's not doing the customer a damn bit of good.

All of a sudden, you come into your office a year later and you realize what you've created. A program that does some good for you clients, no doubt. It definitely helps some people. But so MUCH of your day is spent on documenting and monitoring and all these other activities that have to do with rules and regulations, rather than with serving customers. You've yoked yourself to some money, yeah, but at what cost? Is it worth it? Is it what you wanted your organization to be?

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it all works out. But a lot of times it isn't. So here's the Million Dollar Question:

How would you do things differently if you didn't have to comply with funder requirements or regulations.

Some Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Expectations

So you're thinking about what expectations to set in your NPO. What are some things to think about?

• What are your current expectations? Both organizationally and individually, what are the performance objectives you have for your organization?

• What are your unspoken expectations? Here's something I often see. Local NPO tells staff that what's expected of them is to provide services to their clientele. It may be teaching reading or helping victims of domestic violence or providing after-school activities to disadvantaged youth. Everyone in the place knows that's their job. But then there are all of these OTHER expectations that are not made explicit.
  
  So you have the agency that teaches people how to read. Staff think that their job is to teach people how to read. But then they find out later, that there are all these caveats that you have to be around a while to understand. Like the agency is getting funding to raise 50 people three grade levels in 3 months. Everyone knows that the lower the reading level, the more difficult that task will be, so the expectation REALLY is that you put the effort into the people who are most likely to get you the performance (people at higher levels already) and maybe you don't work so hard with the ones who are lower. And who may, in fact, need your help more.
  
  It's often the unspoken expectations that are driving what's going on in an organization. This can be OK, if they're the "right" expectations. But what agencies need to do is be EXPLICIT about those expectations. It's the implied, unrecognized stuff that can REALLY get you into trouble. 

• How have you communicated your expectations? Does everyone in the place know both the organization's objectives and what's expected of them in their jobs? Are these consistently communicated? How? You need to ask questions, ask supervisors and front-line staff what they understand the expectations to be. Look at how staff are performing. Is it in alignment with what you've communicated? If not, it may be because your expectations are unclear or because you haven't really communicated them at all.

• Are all of your goals "individual" goals? If the only thing you care about is people sitting at their desks, pounding out their own work and not feeling inclined to help others, then by all means, keep the individual goals. But if your organization has ANY need for teamwork, you should think about group goals, too.
  

• What unintended consequences are you seeing? Do you have problems with staff performance that could be linked back to your expectations?  Is it possible that what you THOUGHT you were expecting isn't what staff actually believe is expected? What are the unintended outcomes?

• Do you have expectations that are based on both outcomes (the end product) and process (how you get to the end result?) Consider not just WHAT you want to achieve, but also HOW you want to achieve it.

If your organization starts to ask itself these questions, you can start to create a workplace that communicates more effectively about what it wants. Later we'll have to talk about how you reward staff for meeting those expectations, but for now, it's a good idea to focus first on WHAT you will reward.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Last time we talked, we were discussing individual performance objectives and the very human reality that you get what you measure. This is a cardinal rule that I find is ignored all too often usually with the best of intentions.

Another mistake that organizations often make is to ignore the law of unintended consequences which holds that "almost all human actions have at least one unintended consequence. In other words, each cause has more than one effect, including unforeseen effects." In this case, what we mean is that unless you're REALLY careful about how you set individual performance expectations, you're going to end up with staff behaviors and organizational outcomes you didn't intend or want.

Here's what often happens. Jobs R Us helps people find jobs. They've decided that a good organizational goal would be to help 40 people per month get a job and they're going to measure whether or not 40 people got a job by looking at their dandy new computer system, where each case manager is supposed to be documenting the people who obtained employment.

Further, they've decided that it makes sense to just divide these forty placements up among their four case managers--each case manager will be responsible for "placing" 10 job seekers.

Jobs R Us  now THINKS (not unreasonably) that they've  set up a system where staff are "held accountable" for helping people get jobs. This is inaccurate. What they've done is:

Set up a system that rewards staff for DOCUMENTING that people got jobs.

Do you see what happened here? It's not about helping people find work. It's about PROVING it. And in some cases, that can be done without actually doing anything.  In the worst case scenario, so much attention is paid to the documentation aspect, the customer actually walks away angry because service will go right out the window ("Hi--Congratulations on that new job. I'm calling because I need to prove that you're working." Yeah, thanks. Click)

So here's the law of unintended consequences at work. We WANTED staff to focus on helping people get jobs. But what we got were people working on DOCUMENTING that a customer got a job. Big difference.

Here's another unintended consequence that I often see. Jobs R Us is really into teaming and they want their case managers to support each other and work together as a team, sharing job leads, etc. But they've just set INDIVIDUAL performance objectives! This inevitably sets up a system of competition, not cooperation.

Depending on how crazy the organization gets about the 10 placements a month ("You're FIRED if you get 8 placements!"), what you will often see is staff withholding job leads so that only "their" case load gets access to those jobs. Or if Case Manager A is out of the office and one of her customers comes in, Case Manager B isn't going to "waste time" helping that customer--she gets rewarded for HER placements, not for helping someone else's client.

Do you see how the expectations have created these outcomes? It's not that staff aren't doing their jobs, it's that the law of unintended consequences has intervened and we have created a system to which they are responding. They understand their jobs to be something different than what you intended. This tends to happen when we focus more on outcomes measures, rather than on setting expectations for how processes will occur.

So what can you do? How do you set individual expectations that will give you the kinds of staff behaviors you're looking for? That's a topic for another day . . .

Individual Expectations And How We Screw it Up

Previously we were talking about the role that expectations play in NPO performance--more specifically, we looked at NPO goals at the organizational level. We also talked about the difference between outcomes and process expectations. (Wasn't that fun?)

Today, we're going to take dig a little more deeply into expectations at the individual employee level. After all, they're the ones who presumably will take you to the organizational success. (NOTE--I am talking here about working with paid staff. Volunteer expectations are similar, but different and in this post I'm not dealing with issues related to setting expectations for volunteers)

You Get What You Measure Redux
Just a little reminder, in case you've forgotten . . . Human beings are driven by rewards and punishments. They will generally work on those things for which they are held accountable (both positively and negatively) and they will not work on the things that are ignored by the organization.

As you'll recall from our previous discussion, most NPOs regard themselves as being mission-driven. As a result, they also tend to believe that their staff are very mission-driven, spending their days doing the best things for the kids or women or homeless people or disaster victims they serve. Let me be clear that I think that there is much truth in this. Most people won't accept the wages and working conditions of an NPO unless they're either bought into the organization's mission or really desperate. In my experience it's usually the former.

BUT . . . These people also want to keep their jobs. . . so THAT means that whatever the organization says they should be doing, that is generally what they'll be doing. And if the organization is most focused on outcomes, then that's what staff will focus on too.

The

Shortest Route

to Expectations Will Generally Be Chosen
There was a time when NPOs weren't particuarly good at setting performance objectives. This has changed in recent years and I find that most NPOs have some level of performance metrics in place. The problem, though, is that many times these metrics are only outcomes-based. And remember what we discussed is a potential challenge with outcomes-based expectations? They often create opportunities for abuse.

Let me give an example. In a former life, my husband worked for an agency that was very focused on job placements. The entire department was in a tizzy every day. "How many placements have you gotten?" "I need only two more." "Damn, I have to get 6 more."

Wow, you would think--this is working really well. These people are really focused on what we need them to be focused on. This is great! They really know what they're doing.

Wrong. Here's what actually happened.

First of all, staff did not spend time helping people get jobs. Remember--the measure was "how many people were placed." Instead, they spent it documenting placement. More specifically, they spent their days trolling the database to find people who had already gotten a job on their own (!) and then calling the person so that staff could take credit for that placement. Staff literally spent their days combing through computer files and calling people who were already working! They actually resented it if a person who needed a job came in and interrrupted them in this task because they might not get a placement from it! They would groan and try to pass the job seeker off on someone else so that they could return to the computer to find another working person to take credit for. I'm pretty sure that this was not what the NPO intended to have happen (although I could be wrong)

Here's the other thing that went on. Staff had a quota of placing 8 people a month. If they "placed" their 8 people by September 10, then they considered themselves done for the month. They might try to work with a few people to get a jumpstart on October, but for the most part, they kicked back and enjoyed some free time. Not exactly what we were hoping for here, either.

At first when my husband would tell me this stuff, I would go crazy. I would blame his co-workers, talk about how they weren't doing their jobs. But then I thought about it. Yeah, they WERE doing their jobs. The problem was that the agency had focused on such narrow, outcomes-based performance expecations, people didn't see their jobs BEYOND that. Because there were minimal process objectives in place, the focus had shifted entirely to outcomes, to the detriment of both the NPO and their clients.

So one of the key considerations here--and this takes us back to the outcomes vs. process issue--is that in setting individual employee expectations, we must focus on setting expectations not just on WHAT gets done, but on HOW it's done. We must be prepared to be explicit in these expectations and be willing to hold staff accountable for these expectations.

We'll talk more about individual performance the next time.

 

Expectations--Outcomes vs. Process

So we've been talking about organizational expectations. We need to take a brief shortcut to talk about the two types of expectations that organizations can set--outcomes objectives and process objectives.

Outcomes Objectives--These are the final product, the end result of the agency's efforts. They can be set for specific projects, the agency as a whole, based on a particular funding source, etc. They include things like the number of customers served or the number of customers that achieved a particular objective (job placement, educational attainment, stopped receiving government services, number of dogs placed in a new home, drop in domestic violence statistics, etc.).

Process Objectives--Process objectives are more focused on measuring quality in HOW outcomes are achieved. For example, how often are case notes updated and what are the quality of the case notes? If the agency refers customers to an educational program, what is the quality of that referral? How is it provided to the customer? Does the agency follow up with the customer? If the NPO builds houses in a neighborhood are their process measures in place to ensure that the homes are of high quality, rather than just focusing on putting up X number of houses in 12 months?

Now, a few things I've noticed over the years about these expectations:

• Government agencies (which are major funding source for many NPOs) are more focused on outcomes than on process. They tend to define what should happen as an end result and not spend as much time thinking about how to measure the process of getting there.

• When the focus is on outcomes, then it opens up all kinds of opportunities for abuse--if you just care about job placements, then I will focus on manipulating the data so that you get the job placements you requested.  If your focus is on numbers of customers served, I will focus on herding as many people as possible through my doors, not worrying so much about what happens once they get there. If you want me to build 50 houses in one year, then I may cut corners on materials if they won't arrive in time for me to meet that outcome.
  

• When the focus is on outcomes, your staff will take the shortest route possible to those outcomes and they won't focus on providing quality services. Not because they don't want to, but because they won't be rewarded for quality process and because they will usually be punished for any bad outcomes.
   

• Organizations that pay attention to process are more likely to achieve consistent, sustainable outcomes, but this may cause a dip in the achievement of outcomes during the transition. Most agencies aren't willing to take the hit.

The most effective NPOs set for themselves both outcome AND process objectives. And they pay careful attention to setting those process objectives that are most likely to help them achieve their outcomes.

NPOs that choose this route be very brave, though. They must be willing to risk bad outcomes for a while in order to focus on developing quality processes. They must also think carefully about the process expectations they are setting. How do these expectations align with the ultimate outcomes objectives.

All of this is easy to say and much harder to do. It requires leaps of faith and tests of will that can be nerve-racking to say the least. But in the end, done properly, they can be worth it.

Setting Expectations--"Whore to the System Syndrome"

In a previous post we talked about the six boxes and how they impact organizational performance. Today I wanted to more closely explore the issue of setting expectations.

For organizations there are two types of expectations--the ones that are set for the organization to achieve and the ones that individual employees must achieve to support the organization's objectives. In this post, we'll focus on organizational objectives. In a later post, we'll examine how to set individual expectations so that they support organizational objectives.

You Get What You Measure
Before we look at setting organizational objectives in a non-profit environment, we first need to understand the role that expectations play in the day-to-day operations of an agency.

Here's the bottom line. You get what you measure. If the organization is held accountable for raising money, then the organization's daily operations will naturally be organized around that goal. If your success is measured by the number of people served, then your focus will be on getting as many people in your doors as possible. Human beings do what they are rewarded for and they don't do what is punished or ignored. Whatever the agency is talking about as being THE goals, those will be the things that people work on every day. When we explore individual employee expectations in a later post, we'll look at this issue more closely as part of the law of unintended consequences.

For now, let's look at how organizational goals are set in many NPOs.
 
Organizational Objectives in a Non-Profit Environment

For most non-profits, organizational objectives or expectations are generally based on two things--the organization's mission and clients and the organization's funding sources. Here's where I'll make some people mad:

While most organizations want to believe that they are "mission-driven," I have repeatedly seen that they are more funder-driven, becoming what I call "Whores to the System." This is particularly true if the NPO is supported by government funding, although it can also be the case with foundation dollars.

Here's what happens. NPOs need money to operate. They become aware of a funding opportunity--a government grant or foundation money that seems like it would serve their customers. So they apply for it. They need the money and they go after whatever they can get. It's perfectly understandable.

This would be fine if the requirements of the funding source were always in the best interest of the customers the agencies serve. But this is often not the case. In fact, many times the expectations of the funder can actually work against the organization's mission, although most agencies don't seem to realize this connection until it's too late.

Here's an example of what I mean--I've worked with NPOs  that have set for themselves a goal (based on their mission) of helping unemployed people find work that pays a living wage. To serve these clients, the NPOs receive government funding. One of the requirements of this funding is to find employment for individuals within a specified (very short) period of time. The problem is that many of the clients served by this organization need additional training and education in order to find work that is self-sustaining.

So the NPO is caught between a rock and a hard place.

If the agency does what the funder wants, then they should be focused on getting as many people as possible back to work as quickly as possible, regardless of the quality of the job. If they are going to respond to their organizational mission of helping people find work that pays a living wage, then they should be helping people to get the education and training they need to find that kind of work BEFORE they help these clients get a job. Guess which option they choose? 

In another post we'll talk more about this whole "Whore's to the System" thing again--I think there are alternatives to chasing the dollars--but for now, the point I want to make here is this:

To be able to clearly communicate to your staff about organizational success and the expectations for performance, you need to be clear about who your real customer is. If you're serving the funder, then you need to be honest and up-front about that so you can look at how you're organizing your work practices to meet those goals. What often happens is that agencies lie to themselves and say that they're serving the client, but in reality, everything they do is geared toward meeting the needs of the funders. This is confusing to everyone and makes for a lot of really poor work performance. Better to be straight with yourselves so you can operate from reality.

In our next post, we'll look at the difference between Outcomes and Process and what they has to do with setting organizational and individual expectations.

Michele Roy Martin

I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors for over 20 years. For the past 8 years, I’ve worked as an organizational consultant and staff trainer for nonprofit and governmental agencies that provide workforce development, employment and job training services. My clients have included the U.S Department of Labor, Job Corps, Goodwill Industries International, State and county agencies in Pennsylvania, Texas and New Jersey and numerous community-based organizations. 

Through my work I have learned a lot about the many challenges nonprofits face and the many opportunities that are available to them. I have seen the ways in which nonprofits soar and the ways in which they can shoot themselves in the foot. Repeatedly. And still not realize they’re doing it.

While I’ve had opportunities to return to the for-profit world, I find myself mysteriously bound to working with nonprofits. I’m passionate in my belief that we need more organizations that focus on doing good in the world, rather than on making money. I’m equally passionate in believing that there’s a lot to be done to make nonprofits more effective in meeting their missions.

 One thing I’ve found in working with my clients is that my role as information sharer and “connector” is a huge part of my value-add. In fact, it has become my goal—to share what I learn with everyone I know and to connect clients with one another so that they can benefit from collective learning and experiences.   

In the past few years, with the growth of inexpensive, easy-to-use web-based and multimedia technologies, I’ve seen even greater opportunities to expand this collective learning. I’ve always been something of an early adopter when it comes to multimedia—I’ve had e-mail since 1995 and was doing web-based audio broadcasts in 1999—so I’m always on the lookout for how technology and the Internet are changing what we do.

The times we are living in now feel like a Golden Age of opportunity for nonprofits to me. We are on the cusp of greatness, I think, if we can only learn how to harness the tech and marry it with best practices to create something really amazing. We have huge potential here and I’m excited to see where the journey will take us.

Taking it to the Next Level

When I work with my clients (mostly government agencies and non-profit community and faith-based organizations), we often use a 6 boxes matrix for analyzing organizational issues.

1. Expectations--How does the organization measure success? What are the organizational measures and what are the individual measures? Is everyone in the organization clear about how success is measured? Are these expectations clearly and consistently communicated and measured?
2. Tools and Resources--What tools and resources do staff have access to to get the job done? Is there a policy and procedure manual? The proper forms? Do they have working computers? What about their working environment? Is it conducive to getting the job done?
3. Consequences and Incentives--What behaviors are encouraged? What behaviors are discouraged? What formal incentives and consequnces exist? What are the informal incentives and consequences?
4. Skills and Knowledge--Do staff have the skills and knowledge to get their jobs done? Do they have adequate training not just in the ways of the agency for which they work, but also in core skills and knowledge that may be necessary to get the job done?
5. Selection and Assignment--Do you have the right people on the bus? Are they sitting in the right seats? Are you leveraging people's strengths and helping them to manage around their weaknesses?
6. Motives and Preferences--Are you meeting individual employee needs? Are you using the right mix of incentives, work environment, etc. to motivate each employee?

In this approach, each box is built on the ones before it, so that Box 1 (Expectations) must be clearly developed and understood before the organization should move on to the next one (Tools and Resources). It does no good to work on Box 6, which is related to employee attitudes, if you have not worked on the boxes before it.

Nine times out of ten we find that poor morale is a direct result of the agency not paying attention to one of the earlier boxes, particularly Boxes 1, 2 and 3 If you do not set clear, consistent expectations, provide staff with the right tools and resources and provide the right mix of incentives for meeting expectations, then you shouldn't complain if morale is low. None of us is happy when we don't know what our job is or we're expected to do it without the right tools and training.

In later posts, I'll be taking a closer look at each of the individual boxes. For now, I introduce them because I think that they create the framework for understanding each of the areas that we must pay attention to in running an organization.

In this blog, I want to explore the resources that NPOs can use to improve their organizational capacity. I have a particular interest in the uses of technology and best practices to improve overall performance and want to examine how NPOs can begin to take advantage of the variety of resources that are available to improve their capacity to meet their individual mission.

An ambitious project, no doubt, but a fun one too.