As 2020 continues to deliver one challenge after another, I keep trying to mine the hidden jewels amongst all this chaos. I’m a 40-year Alaskan. I tend to think in terminology that resonates with fellow Alaskans even though I now live in southwestern New Mexico. To help me make sense of it all, I have started to visualize panning for gold. By sorting through these bits and pieces of sparkling rock I have realized that many of the challenges that we're dealing with have resulted in stronger leaders and more resilient organizations.
Obviously, communicating via email, chat rooms, online meetings, and phones means that we all have to be as clear and as open as possible or nothing gets accomplished. We can no longer wait until we can meet with someone face-to-face because that just isn’t going to happen. This reality has forced us into being more transparent because finessing the situation is out of the question. Open communications and transparency are both a real plus and will hopefully become second nature to us all. This little nugget has lived up to its promise.
At first, the isolation—working from home—was challenging but on the individual level it was sort of fun! We got to stay in our PJs, sleep later, start dinner (or laundry) during work hours, etc. And still we accomplished a lot. It felt good, if a wee bit lonely. However, as the year wore on nonprofit leaders have had to ask themselves, does it really work? I believe what we have learned is that for some organizations having staff working from home is a very good thing, something we might continue to pursue after this crisis is over. For others, not so much! Clearly much of the success or failure of having someone work from home depends on two very specific things: people’s ability to self-direct and their specific job.
Let’s unpeel this onion a bit and recognize that working from home allows staff to become flexible in their thinking and to see beyond the boundaries of their own job description. The isolation we are experiencing encourages each individual staff member to take in the whole picture, to become in a sense, the CEO with an overarching understanding of how the organization functions and how their work can drive the organization toward achieving its mission. Isolation can encourage individual thoughtfulness and creativity. A gold nugget.
Leadership during this crisis is not just a theoretical discussion any longer. As leaders, we have to actually lead by reviewing our organization’s core mission and determining how we can best address it during this upheaval. Interestingly, many so-called leaders simply can’t cut it because the present circumstances call for courage, resilience, and humility. This is when 24 carat leaders emerge, and those who are in a position to lead but simply lack the vision and character are set aside.
Because there is a pressing need to figure out how to continue to serve our communities while remaining financially solvent, planning is taking on a new urgency. Engaging the entire staff, as well as volunteers, in the planning process is becoming a necessity, not an option. No one can be left out because the organizational U-turns required to meet quickly evolving circumstances usually involve every single person on staff. Including staff and volunteers who have never been engaged in the planning process before has become the new normal—a true gold bearing vein.
We’ve all had to learn how to manage uncertainty. In early 2020, it looked like the pandemic would be here and gone. By mid-2020, we realized that instead of here and gone, it was likely with us well into 2021. As leaders of organizations we had to adjust quickly at first, and lately we have had to learn from those first six months and readjust. And as the reality of a vaccine begins to materialize, we will need to reconsider our organization’s future yet again. It is perhaps time to do some structured scenario planning.
New Philanthropy Capital has recently published a coronavirus toolkit full of resources to help you manage your organization now, and learn how to move your organization forward. Each nonprofit organization will have different needs and face different challenges (at different times)! This toolkit can help guide your thinking as we tackle yet more change. The toolkit offers advice on how to determine what questions your board of directors and staff need to be asking themselves, recommends reading materials to keep you all on the same page, and provides frameworks to help you plan forward. This toolkit may well be one of those nuggets that strengthens the third sector so it can grow into the social and environmental movement we all imagine it can be.
Gold mining is the process of extracting resources from the ground. I’m not a bit fan of the big mining operations as they take too much and leave gaping holes in their wake. But panning for gold is different. When you pan for gold you’re one person, dipping a pan into a stream, and looking for the glitter amongst the sand. It is a simple process, a light touch on the Earth, that can provide significant returns. To me, that’s what this pandemic represents—an opportunity for each of us to sift through the sand and find those small jewels, plucking them out to become the bedrock for the work we do.