Leading in tough times
As I write this, it's the end of 2008. We're in a financial crisis that's already disastrous, but experts are warning it's going to get worse.
I've been talking a lot with nonprofit leaders who are scared about the future. Me, too. But also...
I'm thinking right now of Amy, a young woman, a first-time ED only three months into the job, who called me on an evening in November. She had come to her nonprofit with eagerness and high hopes but now funding cuts were pulling the rug out from under her.
We talked late into the night because she was really hurting. She told me...
I felt so sad to see her taking the crisis entirely upon herself.
In the best of times, the pressure to be a savior is bad enough. In the worst of times, it's a killer.
If I could talk to our whole sector for just one moment, here's what I'd say:
"Now more than ever...
Not everyone is struggling of course. I work with several leaders who in the midst of this crisis are doing better than ever.
But many leaders are struggling, and if that's you, my wish for you is that, first and foremost, you take the time to...
Get your spirit back.
Then...
Be an organizer.
Find people who will help you.
Don't try to save the day by yourself.
And if no one will help you, or if not enough people will, then I hate to say it, but the day will not be saved. That's the cold reality of an economic crisis.
I've written out the following conversation to give you a better idea of what I mean by getting your spirit back. Later I'd be adding specific strategies for organizing.
Rich: Hi, Dani. How are you?
Dani: Not good. Really not good.
Rich: What's happening?
Dani: We got letters yesterday from two foundations warning us that our grants are going to be reduced next year, maybe by as much as 50%, they're not sure. And our contract manager from the City already told us they won't be able to give us the full amount of our contract this year because the money's just not there.
Rich: In the face of that news, what do you need right now?
Dani: I don't even know. I can hardly catch my breath.
Rich: Tell me about that.
Dani: It's like my brain is freezing up.
Rich: Meaning?
Dani: It's like I'm not all here. And I need to be here.
Rich: So tell me who you are when you are present.
Dani: I'm the person who's led this organization for the past three years.
Rich: And during that time...
Dani: We've come a long way. A very long way.
Rich: And you are...
Dani: A leader who fires people up. A leader who has a talent for hiring the best staff in the world. A leader who can scout the way ahead and chart the course.
Rich: How much does this nonprofit mean to you?
Dani: It means a lot. This is the place where I've become a leader. When I started, I didn't know what I was doing. Now I do. I love being here.
Rich: And...
Dani: I'm so scared that I'm going to fail. Hmmm.
Rich: Hmmm?
Erin: It's not just failing. It's failing something I love. And failing people who matter to me.
Rich: What burdens are you carrying right now?
Dani: Ohmigod, so many of them.
Rich: What comes to mind first?
Dani: The buck stops with me. I'm the ED, so I'm the one who has to find the bucks. That's my job. That's what I'm responsible for.
Rich: And in this economy?
Dani: I don't know where else to look. The past three years, I've diversified our funding like you're supposed to do. I've looked everywhere for money. My staff think I'm a genius when it comes to fundraising. But I've already thought of everything I can think of. Now I'm hitting the wall.
Rich: Whose fault is that?
Dani: Mine. I should think of something.
Rich: Really?
Dani: That's how it feels. It really, really feels like that.
Rich: What's your inner critic saying to you right now?
Dani: That if we have to cut back services and lose staff, that's my fault. That's on me. That's because I'm not good enough.
Rich: Now focus in on the part of you that always loves you. What's she saying?
Dani: I don't even know.
Rich: Take a guess at what she'd say. Remember, this is the part of you that knows exactly who you are and always keeps you in her heart.
Dani: It's painful to even think about that.
Rich: Because?
Dani: Because it's such a long reach from where I am right now.
Rich: Take a breath and give yourself whatever time you need to find her again. No rush.
Dani: Okay...She's feisty. She wouldn't sit still for this. She'd pull the rug out from under my inner critic and have fun doing it.
Rich: How?
Dani: I don't know. I guess she'd just tell the truth.
Rich: Which is?
Erin: Well, she knows this crisis is not my fault. And when I set the savior pressure aside for a moment I know that, too.
Rich: Make sure your inner critic hears you.
Dani: Okay. Here's what's true. I didn't create this crisis. I and my staff have been working so hard to make this country a better place and meanwhile these guys with tremendous power have been working overtime to blow things up.
For years we've been listening to all the talk about terrorists, but the guys we should have been watching out for most are the ones on Wall Street and everyone who colluded with them or looked the other way. All those people who have been busy taking down the economy of the country they say they love. What kind of patriotism is that?
This crisis is really not my fault. It seems so obvious that I feel dumb even saying it.
Rich: I think it matters that you do say it and that you say it loud and clear.
Dani: Why?
Rich: You know the pressure that you're feeling to save your organization?
Dani: Yes.
Rich: That pressure casts a spell and we need to break it. Break it like Humpty-Dumpty.
Dani: I've felt that pressure a lot in the past and I've done a pretty darned good job of resisting it. I've done my best to develop my staff so, in fact, I'm not a solo leader.
Rich: I've seen that.
Dani: And I haven't felt lonely at the top. Not till now...whoops.
Rich: Whoops?
Erin: Really big whoops. I forgetting who I am. I'm not a solo leader. I don't carry the responsibility for the organization by myself. I have staff I can count on.
Rich: So...
Dani: So I can see that this crisis has pushed me down into quicksand of savior thinking and I don't even believe in it.
Rich: And seeing that...
Dani: I can take a stand against it.
Rich: Which means?
Dani: I'm declaring right now that I am not responsible for the crisis and therefore I am not responsible for saving anybody or anything.
Rich: How radical is that?
Dani: Really radical. I can say it, but I don't feel it in my bones yet.
Rich: Then let's stick with it. So if I say to you that you are absolutely not responsible for the outcome, what's your response?
Dani: I want the outcome. I want it. I want to save all of our services and all our staff positions. I want that.
Rich: Okay. What's the difference between wanting and being responsible?
Dani: Ah, I get it. I can disconnect the two.
Rich: And if you do?
Dani: That gives me freedom. I feel a kind of detachment. Is this a Zen thing? Is this the nonprofit version of enlightenment?
Rich: Maybe it is. But if you detach from the outcome, what about attachment? Is there anything you want to be attached to?
Dani: Oh, I'm attached. I am. I'm really mad about this crisis and how it happened and what it's doing to me and my staff, but most of all what it's doing to our clients who were already hurting and now things are just getting worse for them by the day. I'm mad, yes I am.
Rich: So...
Dani: So I don't want my nonprofit to get taken down without a fight.
Rich: Tell me about the fight in you.
Dani: What you call the part of me that always loves me, now I can hear her. She's a fighter. Now she's showing up. I guess she just needed the right invitation.
Rich: What about that time-honored phrase, "fight the good fight"?
Dani: I like it. I'm going to adopt it as my slogan for the duration. That's what I want to do. And I'll ask my staff to do it with me.
Rich: And what does it mean?
Dani: I'm not really sure. What about you? Have you ever been in a situation where the only thing you could do was fight the good fight?
Rich: Yes.
Dani: Okay, then tell.
Rich: It was with my old organization, CAP. We had a statewide network and four million kids went through our program. We taught them self-defense and because of that, kids were saving their own lives. What more could anyone want? We had proved ourselves over and over again and then out of the blue the Governor cut our funding.
Dani: Why'd he do that?
Rich: Because the teachers had gotten gotten a ballot initiative passed called Prop 98, which locked in funding for education and limited the Governor's discretionary power. He hated that. So in his last year in office he took unprotected programs like ours which were related to the schools but weren't in the budget of the Education Department, and cut us.
Dani: So it was revenge.
Rich: Yes. It wasn't our fault. The Governor even said he had nothing against our program specifically. It wasn't personal. We called it a "drive-by defunding." We happened to be in the wrong place when the political shots were being fired.
Dani: What did you do?
Rich: We organized our state network of projects and fought to save our programs. We gave it everything we had, which was a lot. The Los Angeles Times said that we were #1 in letters and phone calls of all the things that got cut that year. Professional lobbyists in Sacramento told us that we were running a winning campaign.
And still we lost. We ran a winning campaign, but we lost.
Dani: Wow, that must have really hurt.
Rich: Yes. Way more than I even thought it would.
Dani: What do you mean?
Rich: It was bad enough to lose the services. Our projects in the Sierras where they had no foundations and no big companies with giving programs closed their doors overnight. Other projects kept going but in a much, much smaller way.
But beyond that, it was so hard to take in the fact that the State of California really could say in such bold terms, "We don't care if our kids get abused or even killed. Other things are more important to us than that. Like political power."
Of course, I'd seen this kind of thing before. I'd seen other programs get cut. I understood all along that in the hardball game of politics kids don't rate very high. But I had put ten years of my life into CAP at that point. And that made it so very personal.
Dani: So that was the worst of it?
Rich: No...I think I'd need to say it this way. We had given something so beautiful to our state. We took an ugly issue and made something beautiful happen. We showed what could happen when ordinary people organize. We showed what could happen if we taught kids self-defense, both the skills and the spirit of it.
CAP was such a gift. And the state saw it, they really saw it, and then they said, "We don't want it."
It wasn't just about CAP, it wasn't just about kids, it wasn't just about us. It made me scared for the future. What's going to happen to humankind if we keep making such horribly backward decisions? That's how big it was for me.
Dani: I get that. So how did you make peace with what happened to CAP?
Rich: I didn't. I haven't. I don't want to. There's a part of me all these years later that still refuses to make peace with such destruction. And that's something I like about myself.
But now back to you. What does my story mean to you?
Dani: I notice that I'm breathing easier. I can see so clearly that the loss you went through was not your fault. I can see the same thing is true for me in this current situation.
And I can see the value of fighting the good fight. At least when you lost, you knew you had done everything you could.
Rich: Yes, that's true.
Dani: You fought to the bitter end.
Rich: Yes and no.
Dani: No?
Rich: We did fight to the very last possible moment. In the final legislative session, Maxine Waters who was our author, our mentor, and a fighter, tried in one last gallant attempt to pass a special bill to reinstate our funding. This was at 5 a.m. on an August morning. It was the last bill to be voted on by the Assembly that year and they voted it down.
But back in the last week of May with one month of funding to go, Kate, our ED, came in one morning and said, "It's time." I knew exactly what she meant. "It's time to tell our staff and alert the projects that all the signs are pointing to defeat. We'll keep fighting, but we have to let people know that the force is not with us."
Dani: Why not just keep fighting?
Rich: Because it's important to know when to stop. Fighting the good fight is not about sacrificing yourself and your staff.
We had workshop leaders who were single mothers who could not afford to go without a paycheck. So we needed to warn them. Many of them went and got other jobs right away. These were people we loved and it was heartbreaking to lose them. But thank God they didn't wait till the last minute.
And this is true for leaders as well as front-line staff. You've heard me say that you are more important than the work. And that's especially important to remember now.
Dani: Why?
Rich: Because in a time of severe crisis it's such an easy thing to forget. But I want leaders to take care of themselves so they can fight again another day.
Social change work is a long-term endeavor. It's so painful to see organizations we've worked so hard to build go under. But we absolutely can't afford to see our leaders go under. We need our leaders not just for today but for tomorrow.
Dani: I do believe in the long term. But speaking of staff, that's one of the most painful parts of this. Starting in the Spring, I may have to lay people off. And I just don't know how I'm going to bring myself to do that.
Rich: Because?
Dani: I need them and I care about them. They've made our work a success. It's not fair for them to lose their jobs. And then to lay them off into a punishing economy, that takes my breath away. Most of them have families. What are they going to do?
Rich: I don't know any easy answers. It just hurts. All I can say is to keep remembering that it's not your fault and do what you can. Brainstorm with them where to search. Write a stellar recommendation for them. Give them time off to do interviews. Pay for some outplacement sessions or coaching if you can afford to. Get the whole staff together to be a support team for the people being laid off.
Dani: Okay, I can do those things.
Rich: Let me also check in with you for a second about something that can happen in tough times. I've known EDs who have been attacked by staff, like, "It's your job to raise the money and you failed and now I have to suffer for your failure. You're the one who should be let go, not me."
Dani: Oh, God, that's awful. There's that savior thing again making a mess. But my staff won't say that. They see how hard I'm working at this.
Rich: I'm really glad to hear that. One more thing. I think in the middle of all this it's important to take the time to mourn.
Dani: I haven't done that at all. But I get it. There are going to be losses. No matter how hard we work. No matter how much we fight, there are going to be cutbacks, services lost, jobs lost, whole nonprofits lost. We can't just suck all that up as if it's not happening.
Rich: What do you need to do to be with your sadness?
Dani: I definitely need to do something because it's too much to keep carrying all my feelings by myself.
Okay, I know what. I have two friends I've known since college who've been my biggest fans since I took this ED job. I'm going to ask them if they'd be willing to get together and talk this through with me, how scared I am and how much I'm hurting.
Rich: What will that give you?
Dani: Odd. My answer is more fight.
Rich: Meaning?
Dani: All of a sudden I see that carrying this burden of sorrow in silence is one of the things that's freezing me up. The sorrow is true. It says something important about me. So sharing it is one way of remembering who I am.
Rich: So who are you?
Dani: I'm not someone who will ever surrender to despair.
Rich: I've seen that in you.
Dani: You have? How?
Rich: Think back over the past three years. Have there been times when you've felt in over your head?
Dani: Yes, especially in the beginning. Our funding was so bad the Board told me to cut two programs immediately. But I told them I'd find the funding and I did. I got the right staff running those programs and then the funding was not so hard. I don't give up easily. In fact, I don't know if I ever give up.
Rich: Who else are you?
Dani: I believe in fighting for what I believe in whether we win or lose. I guess I really am detached from the outcome. Dani, Zen Priestess!
Rich: And who else are you?
Dani: I'm just me. I'm not a savior and I don't want to be.
Rich: What does that mean about what's next for you?
Dani: It means I'm going to start asking for a whole lot more help. My staff work hard, but I'm going to call on them to step up.
Rich: Like a state of emergency?
Dani: I'm going to declare one. That's definitely what we're in. I'm going to make an official declaration, and then I'm going to call on my staff. I'm going to ask them to take on a bunch of my leadership duties so I can get out the door and pursue funding much more aggressively.
Rich: How will they respond?
Dani: Really well. I know that about them. That's one way they can join me in fighting the good fight and then I won't feel lonely.
Rich: What might that give them?
Dani: They'll get to grow their abilities. And they won't be sitting around feeling helpless. Do you know what I mean?
Rich: Yes, I do.
Dani: Okay, I want to hear about it.
Rich: Years ago I had an episode of cancer, which is now in complete remission. But when I was going to support groups, I learned some key lessons about facing a life threatening illness.
Dani: Like what specifically?
Rich: That the first and most natural reaction is for people to regress.
Dani: Did you do that?
Rich: Oh my yes. When I first got my diagnosis, I crashed. Hid out for a while. Felt really depressed. Handled it all wrong.
Dani: And then?
Rich: My sister-in-law sent me a book about...well, actually it was about fighting the good fight. What I decided was this. I didn't have control over the cancer. I couldn't determine the outcome. But I could live in such a way as to give myself the very best chance of success
It turned out my cancer was first-stage and the doctors knew what to do with it, so I have no idea if the things I did helped defeat the cancer. But they definitely gave me my spirit back.
So if we think about the crisis we're in right now as being life-threatening for nonprofits, then what?
Dani: Quite simply, my staff and I are going to fight. We're going to take very, very good care of ourselves, but we're going to fight. We're going to rally our supporters. We're going to play offense. We're going to go find new supporters. We're going to run a winning campaign.
And if we have losses, then we'll mourn. But no matter what, we'll know this: Despite everything fate has thrown at us, we've stayed true to ourselves.
MORE TO COME
© 2008 Rich Snowdon
