Marketing and Management Thoughts

Same old goals get the same old excitement.

Ever notice how excited people get about anything new. They talk about it and want to be a part of it if they can. Most often for us this happens vicariously because these new things are distant to us personally. These new things generally consist of new TV programming, relationships in our peers, or a new gadget that comes out.

There are websites, magazines, and multi-million dollar industries revolving around each of these because they feed off our human excitement about something new.

So what happens when we aren’t new anymore?

One probably many non-profit organizations face on a regular basis is going stale. The freshness that exists around new things fades when organizations get older. It is this reason NGOs try to make the most of their first year or two.

We can’t be new and young all the time, and there are benefits to being established (especially for fundraising). So how do we go about keeping this excitement?

This isn’t going to be rocket science.

Think about the organizations that you’ve been a part of and ask this question, when were you most excited about that membership?

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When leaders don’t fail, no-one else will ever innovate.

Who has ever heard of someone achieving success without failing first? Every professional athlete spends more time practicing and lets not forget they were all amateurs before turning pro.

So why do we manage as if we should only experience/expect success and not failure. Those failures are the building blocks of their success. They might be of yours as well if you don’t push them away.

Leaders have to take risks that both succeed and that fail. Without this no one will feel the freedom to take steps of their own (in addition to your explicit encouragement). This molds the culture that your organization projects, both externally and internally, and will determine if you will raise up innovators from within or not.

The problem here is that we love boasting and reminiscing in our successes. If we only have success, or never talk about our failures, those around us will fear trying to live up to your standards. The more humble we are, the more accessible opportunity (and then innovation) will become to those around us.

In the last post we talked about how the focal point (mission statement) can inhibit innovation through suffocation. Here we’ll talk more about developing that culture. (more…)