The Discovery Pod is now on Season 10! Douglas Nelson shares what to expect from this next phase of the show, from what it takes to build a resilient organization in uncertain times to how leadership successions should be handled in the social profit sector. He also reveals which topics from the previous season he will continue to discuss, including the essential elements of sustaining change within a team and the most productive ways to engage with business boards.
—
Listen to the podcast here
Season 10 Opener: Navigating Transitions & Engaging Boards With Douglas Nelson, Host
Welcome to season ten of the show. If you’ve been tuning in since the beginning, since April of 2019, or even if this is your 1st episode, thank you for being a part of this conversation about leadership and our social profit sector. We are truly pleased, thrilled, humbled, whatever the LinkedIn words are. We’re happy that we’re the most tuned-in show and candidate in the social profit sector. It’s a responsibility and an opportunity we take very seriously to provide meaningful, actionable conversations, tools, tactics, and tips for leaders in our sector to improve the work that they do every day and advance the perspective that they have on working with their boards, their leadership teams, and in pursuit of their organizational purpose. It’s a great role to have.
How This Podcast Started
We are so excited about what is coming up for season ten. When we launched this show, our goal was simple. It was to learn from leaders who are making a difference in their communities, understand what’s working, what challenges others have encountered, and how they overcame or mitigated those challenges so that you can apply those lessons to your organization.
Having been a CEO myself, I know that it can be a lonely place to be. You can’t talk to your board chair about the frustrations you’re having with other board members or with your leadership team. You can’t bring your concerns and the pressures you’re feeling from the board to your leadership team in any way that is constructive or helpful in the long-term.
A lot rests on your shoulders when you’re in these leadership roles, whether it’s leading significant programs or being the CEO yourself. It’s helpful and meaningful to read about the experience of other social profit leaders in the Canadian context who have been where you’ve been and address some of the challenges you’re facing.
Even if you don’t learn the absolute solution, because as we know, there are very few magic wands in our work here in the social profit sector, even if you don’t find the answer, what you can understand and know is that fellow travelers on this path have encountered those challenges. You are at least, at the very minimum, not alone.
Two Common Phrases To Let Go
As I was thinking about getting ready for season 10, which is going to include our 300th episode of the show coming up, in the time since we started that April of 2019, the sector has changed. We have seen a lot of positive change and some concerning developments along the way. One of our active hypotheses here at the Discovery Group is that the world outside our social profit sector is changing more quickly than the world inside our sector. This represents a great weakness and a threat to the success in the long-term sustainability of many organizations within our sector.
The social profit sector is changing more quickly than the world. This represents a great weakness and a threat to the long-term sustainability of many organizations within it. Share on XThere are some positives. Leadership has become more transparent, more collaborative, and more attuned to the communities that it serves. We’ve heard from leaders addressing issues related to the environment, health, social services, addictions, and mental health. Across the spectrum of our social profit sector, the solutions are becoming more interesting and more creative. The challenges are becoming more complex, but so are the solutions. There is a lot of room for optimism.
One of the challenges that we’re hoping to address, and you’ll read over the course of season ten, is that we’re going to try to bring to a close or bring to ground a couple of phrases that we hear a lot in our work here at the Discovery Group. We would like very much for them to exit the stage for our social profit sector. The first of those phrases is building the plane while it’s flying. First of all, this is exceedingly dangerous. Any pilot or any airline that would allow a plane to take off without having its safety inspection completed is endangering the people who are passengers and fellow travelers on that plane.
As leaders, when we conceive of the work we’re doing in real-time and responding to the situation, we’re not building the plane as we’re flying it. That is irresponsible. It reflects a lack of planning. It reflects a lack of time taken to consider the issue, set a strategy, identify tactics, and execute. If that’s a phrase that you’re using or that’s a concept that you’re thinking of, I urge you to show the care for your team, the care for your board, and the care for your organizational purpose by taking the time to be thoughtful about what you’re planning, putting the resources in place, and executing against that plan. Don’t wing it.
Season 10: Always spend a considerable time reflecting on the issue at hand, setting a strategy for it, and making the proper execution.
The second phrase, and this is a big one that we’re hoping to put down in season ten of the show, is noses in, fingers out, with respect to the role of a board. One of the big challenges we hear a lot from organizations is, “How do we engage our board? Particularly, how do we engage our board in those activities that happen outside of the boardroom?” It’s that ambassador role that we talk about, whether it’s as fundraisers, as awareness raisers, or as advocates for the organization.
That phrase noses in, fingers out conjures up the idea of these bland faces looking down their nose at the social profit organization in the terrarium and evaluating. It puts board members in the position of evaluation and adjudication rather than as active participants in the pursuit of your organizational purpose. Rather than fellow travelers being on the same side of the table with management and the organization, the board is put at a distance.
Instead, we want to encourage you and encourage the idea that board members should first be engaged as advisors on strategy, process, and results. When you’re thinking down the road in identifying what that strategy is going to be or what it needs to be for the next year, three, five, or ten years, we want our board members to come as advisors and explorers first, rather than evaluators and adjudicators.
Season 10: Board members should act as advisors and explorers rather than evaluators and adjudicators.
That phrase, noses in, fingers out, which we often used to say, “Board members should stick to their lane and not get involved in the operations of an organization,” has some utility, which is what makes it so dangerous. If you’re concerned about board engagement or you’re concerned about getting your board members activated outside of the boardroom and the work that they do around the boardroom table to the committee table, that phrase noses in, fingers out is working against you. I encourage you to put it down however you can within your organization.
Topics To Be Discussed
I’ve given you the goal. We’re going to have some great conversations, and we’re going to put those two phrases down in our social profit sector. I also want to talk about some of the themes that we’re going to cover because we’ve been thoughtful about the individuals that are coming on and are excited about the caliber of the conversations that we’ve already recorded. Those will be recorded over the coming months.
In season ten, we’ll be exploring themes that matter that are very relevant to the questions you’re facing in your organizations, like how leaders are navigating transitions, whether that’s organizational, generational, or cultural. A number of leaders in our social profit sector are considering what succession looks like in their organizations and for themselves. That’s something we’re going to spend a fair bit of time on.
We’re also going to look at what it takes to build resilient organizations in uncertain times, which is a reminder to keep focusing on what you will do, not so much on what might happen. Leave the crystal ball out of your executive leadership team meetings and senior leadership team meetings. Don’t bring the crystal ball to the board meetings. Instead, focus on the strategic plan that you have, the operational plan that you have, and the mitigation strategies and pivots that you’re preparing or have thought through with your leadership team and your board.
Do not bring a crystal ball to board meetings. Focus on building a strategic and operational plan instead. Share on XWe’re going to continue a focus this season on how place belonging and equity are reshaping how we think about leadership itself within our sector. The individuals, the faces of leadership, are changing. This is an unmitigated positive in our social profit sector. We want to continue to talk to leaders who are leading that charge, the challenges they’re facing, the questions boards are asking, and how we can support leaders in their roles more effectively and continue this very positive change in our social profit sector.
We’re going to look at the essential elements of initiating and sustaining change within your organization. There is no such thing as a steady state. There is no such thing as status quo in our social profit sector. We’re going to talk to a number of leaders who’ve led very effective organizational changes that positively benefited their organizational purpose and repositioned their organizations in a positive and creative way.
We’re going to put more focus again on the board’s role during campaigns. When we brought that up in the last episode of season nine, we got a lot of commentary and a lot of questions that people had about how they can engage their boards more effectively during the time of a capital or a comprehensive campaign. We’ll be talking about that. We’ll be spending a fair bit of time bringing in some TDG experts on activating strategic plans and much more within your organization.
Upcoming Guests To Look Forward To
I hope you’ll join us for the conversations ahead. If you haven’t already subscribed wherever you tune in to podcasts, whether it’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox, or wherever they are, and if you have people you’d love to know from on our show or issues you’d like us to address, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with us here at the Discovery Group. This is something we love doing. These are conversations we look forward to. The best part is getting to share them with you, our audience. Thank you for being a part of the journey. Thank you for tuning in. Enjoy season ten.
