The Curse of Knowledge

I'm sorry, but more NYT fodder for you. This time, it's my favorite section of the times these days, the Sunday business section. I actually just finished reading Janet Rae-Dupree's piece titled "Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike" (awful headline, btw), which introduced me to the title phrase of this post. Basic idea is pretty straightforward: the more you know about a given field or practice, the less creative you tend to become. Knowledge is the box you build that you then have to think your way out of... Like so many business/management concepts, when you summarize it it seems painfully obvious. Rendered as aphorism: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But it's an idea that has special application in arts & culture non-profits, where so many people running organizations come out of the arts or academia and know vast amounts about their mission and the art they help create, but downplay their roles as business managers. Fundraising is another area heavily encrusted with "givens" and received wisdom that could benefit from "zero gravity thinking." [future note -- is this opposed to "best practice" thinking?]

And as long as you're looking at the business section, look over the top story about the Indiana non-profit that found itself losing money in investments that (they discovered) were tied to the sub-prime mortgage disaster. And one last thing -- William J. Holstein's book section talks about a new management book (The Future of Management by Gary Hamel, Harvard Business School Press) that emphasizes the use of teams with much autonomy and latitude to create, but who are also rewarded based on performance. This is contrasted with top-down, hierarchical management associated with business school MBA's. Or so he says.

Capital Mission

As we're on vacation right now, I've restricted my reading to the reliable NYT & the Inky. This story, from the December 23 Times, was a provocative, if somewhat baffling, reminder of the promise of new corporate/capitalization structures for nonprofits. If you know anyone with really smart ideas about this, please drop me a line--the particular examples given seem a little too baroque to work on a broad scale, but better ideas will come, and I'd love to hear about them.

X vs. Y

We do a lot of thinking around here about the predicted upcoming leadership crisis in nonprofit management. This crisis has been defined by researchers who see an alarming convergence between a rising number of retiring baby-boomer managers, dramatically increasing numbers of nonprofit organizations, and declining or steady numbers of new, young potential managers entering the field. This white paper by Thomas J. Tierney of the Bridgespan Group is one of the most influential statements on the subject. While the demographic shifts are undeniable, skeptics point to mitigating factors, and say that the talk of a "crisis" is overblown. CompassPoint's Jeanne Bell has been one of the prominent voices on that side of the argument.

This article, off the Harvard Business website, suggests another dimension to the leadership crisis--though it's really about generational changes in the workforce and the preference baby boomers have for generation Y over generation X. Not exactly hard science, but an interesting perspective.

Where to Board Members come from?

A new "BoardCafe" newsletter came out a few days ago. Board Cafe is a newsletter written for board members. It's published by Compasspoint, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco and Silicon Valley that provides information to other nonprofits about management and capacity building issues. This particular issue includes some great ideas about recruiting new board members-- a huge issue for many growing organizations -- plus other highlights from the year's issues. and it's free!

"Disagree and Commit"

One of the books on our reading list these days is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, a very popular book about team management by Patrick Lencioni. It came out about six years ago and quickly rose to the top of the business book rankings. Non-profit managers, and particularly arts & culture nonprofit managers, are seldom exposed to thinking about teams and team management. Many of us come out of academia or the arts, where working in teams is not a vital skill. Lencioni's book is a short, highly readable introduction to the subject & I recommend it, but I've had one particular concept rattling around my head for a few days is the simple phrase "disagree and commit." The Lencioni model places great value on the ability of functional teams to argue. He nearly goes so far as to say that if a team does not argue, it's not really working. At the end of an argument, however, a decision has to be made--and those who don't prevail need to be able to have their disagreement acknowledged, at the same time that they commit to executing the decision made. Consensus among team members is not always, not even often, possible--but good team members have to be able to fully commit a project once the time for discussion is over.

More Magic of the Youtubes

...no more evidence is needed, but today's NYT article about MIT Physics Professor Walter H. G. Lewin & his lectures at iTunesU is yet another great example of the power of internet video...

A Friendly Provocation

The Stanford Social Innovation Review
is one of the most important journals in the philanthropic field, and its web site has a lot of great, free information. Its Opinion blog is especially provocative. I've been mulling over Lucy Bernholz's November 12 posting about "Designing New Foundations," reading it as a tonic and wondering how best to engage with these friendly provocations. Read it and see.