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Notes for
the by Paul Pribbenow, Ph.D. |
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Philanthropy is a journey. Let JGA be your guide. Johnson, Grossnickle and
Associates LLC
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Volume
Two, Number Five (June 2001) ****** "What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how." (W. Wordsworth, from "The Prelude") NOTES FROM READERS >>What you think<< It has been an
intriguing couple of months in my life since the last issue of
Notes—how about you? I am
grateful for the many good wishes I received after folks read my
observations on transitions. Pamela
Miller of Rockhurst University in Kansas City wrote with words of
encouragement for me, but also commented that she believes that civility
in transition is important for three reasons: it is the right thing to
do, it gives her a sense of pride and respect, and it ensures that those
we serve know that our concern for them and their work goes on even
after we depart. What a helpful summary of the reasons why our leavings must
be carefully tended. As I mentioned in my
last issue of Notes, I was involved in final interviews for a college
presidency in April and May. Alas,
I was the runner-up for the position, and with the season for
presidencies now pretty much behind us for this year, I have made some
arrangements for my work for the next year that take me down new paths.
I stepped down as dean for college advancement and secretary of
the Board of Trustees here at Wabash College at the end of May.
As of July 1, I will embark upon two new roles: as Research
Fellow for the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at
Wabash College
(the Lilly Endowment-funded center created to explore and promote the
liberal arts) and as Senior Consultant for Johnson, Grossnickle
and Associates (a fundraising and management consulting firm based in
Franklin, Indiana). I am both grateful for these opportunities (allowing
me another year to pursue college presidencies) and excited by the
meaningful work my new roles will offer.
I’m sure there will be lots to share as the year progresses.
Thanks again for your support and good wishes.
My email address remains the same (pribbenp@wabash.edu),
but I will work primarily from home (telephone: 765-361-0244, fax:
765-361-0264). I also will
have more time for some of my personal projects, including Notes (though
I’ll forego the temptation to publish more often!) Occasionally, I (or my
colleagues) refer to items from previous issues of Notes.
If you have not been a subscriber previously, and wish to review
our conversations, past issues of Notes are available
on-line.
The website version of Notes also includes helpful hyperlinks to
sources for purchasing or subscribing to the various publications
mentioned in Notes. I
thank my friends at Johnson, Grossnickle
and Associates for their
abiding support for our reflective practice. ****** REFLECT ON THIS >>Are you still
reading?<< Wabash colleague Bill
Doemel, who keeps track of education and technology trends for many of
us, forwarded this disturbing report from a Washington
Post article (May
13, 2001): “According to the
survey firm NPD Group—which tracked the everyday habits of thousands
of people through the 1990s—this country is reading printed versions
of books, magazines, and newspapers less and less.
In 1991, more than half of all Americans read a half-hour or more
every day. By 1999, that
number had dropped to 45 percent. In addition, a 1999
Gallup Poll found that only 7 percent of Americans were voracious
readers…while some 59 percent said they had read fewer than 10 books
in the previous year…” Bill’s questions for
his faculty colleagues are: “How do we teach students who don’t
read? Do we just give up or
do we find ways to acquaint them with the joys of reading?” In a similar vein,
I’ve just finished reading David Denby’s “Great Books: My
Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers
of the Western World” (Simon & Schuster, 1996), which is his
account of returning to Columbia University when he was forty-something
to retake the Western civilization core courses.
He admits that he had become something of a non-reader himself,
and he feels that “what I had read or understood was slipping away.
I possessed information without knowledge, opinions without
principles, instincts without beliefs.”
Reading the classics again—alongside students thirty years his
junior—offered Denby the opportunity to see first hand what it meant
to be challenged by radical ideas and narratives.
He came away with a clear appreciation for how
reading—especially great books—enchants us before we are
disenchanted, teaches us to love a text before we attack the sub-text,
and offers us the chance to make a self before we find out that it
doesn’t exist. >>Thanksgiving
and generosity<< One of the most
profound professional moments I have experienced occurred in a small
room in an airport club in Newark, New Jersey, where the president of
the college for which I worked, the national campaign chairman, and I
met with an alumnus of the college to ask him to make a leadership gift
for our campaign. The initial chitchat
gave way to a more systematic presentation of a case for his support.
And then there was the moment when the campaign chairman asked
for the gift—the moment of asking, I find, is always full of
expectation and anticipation and even a bit of grace.
The opportunity to ask surely is a gift. I give thanks for such moments of grace. But it was not so much
the lead-up and the solicitation that made this moment stand apart for
me—as much as I find the dynamics of such situations a source of great
pride and privilege in my professional life. No, it was what
followed that marks this occasion for me. The prospective donor
demurred. “I don’t need my name on a building”, he said, “you
know that.” Which we did.
The president then offered this simple response: “But we need
your name on the building, not because of your financial commitment, but
because of what you mean to our college.
Your career symbolizes what our college aspires to be and do.
We need our students to be reminded of your example every day on
campus.” I give thanks
for such moments of aspiration. I then recounted for
him how, in the visits we made to college alumni around the country, to
a person everyone asked about him and commented on how proud they were
for him and because of him. During
a particularly difficult time in the man’s professional career, his
fellow alumni had been especially concerned about his well-being and
asked to be remembered to him. I
give thanks for such moments of sincere caring. Our conversation
paused, and our prospective supporter took in our words.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
And then he went on to say that he would need to consider our
request more seriously, discuss it with his family, and so on.
But there was something in his eyes that told me he already had
made up his mind. I give
thanks for such moments of insight. Two months later when
the call came from our prospective donor with word of his intentions to
make the gift to name the campus building, his generosity was confirmed.
But, for me, that generosity had already been confirmed in the
thanksgiving offered in that Newark clubroom. Generosity—of spirit
and means—is always preceded by, and inextricably bound up in,
thanksgiving for all we have received. [Questions for discussion: In what ways do we as professionals create opportunities for thanksgiving before we expect generosity? What are you thankful for—and how do you offer your thanks? With what are you generous—and how is your generosity a result of thanksgiving? What moments in your professional career have taught you valuable lessons?] >>The challenge
of managing knowledge: how do we know what we know?<< I have a Charles
Barsotti cartoon on my desk, clipped from the June 2001 issue of
“Fast
Company,” which depicts a CEO asking a subordinate: “Wilson, what
exactly is a ‘knowledge worker,’ and do we have any on staff?”
A humorous and telling comment on the ubiquitous use of the
concepts of knowledge worker and knowledge management that fill the
management literature these days. What
exactly does it mean to be a knowledge worker?
And how do we manage the knowledge these workers supposedly
possess and use in their work? Management guru Peter
Drucker first coined the term “knowledge worker.”
For Drucker, these knowledge workers or professionals are at the
core of a Knowledge Revolution, made possible not through machinery, but
through knowledge—systematic, logical analysis and cognitive science.
The key for success in the knowledge revolution, Drucker tells
us, will be the social position of knowledge professionals and social
acceptance of their values. And
the successful management of knowledge and knowledge workers has much to
do with our ability to recognize and empower these professionals in the
context of our organizations. We’ve discussed here
before the role of informal learning organizations and communities of
practice as tools that help us to create, acquire, interpret, and retain
knowledge (see Notes, Volume 1, Number 5, August
2000).
It is clear from the work of authors and researchers such as
Peter Senge (“The Fifth Discipline,” Doubleday, 1990) and John Seely
Brown and Paul Duguid (“The Social Life of Information,” Harvard
Business School Press, 2000) that much of the knowledge our
organizations most need to be successful is tacit, deeply embedded in
the wisdom and know-how of workers and largely transferred through
informal contexts (in other words, it is hard to put our fingers on the
knowledge we need, let alone encourage its dissemination and use). Many organizations have
responded to the Knowledge Revolution by investing in sophisticated
software programs, intranets, and other tools as ways of capturing what
we know. Authors like
Thomas Davenport, Laurence Prusak, and Joseph Horvath (see Davenport and
Prusak’s “Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They
Know,” Harvard Business School Press, 1998) point out that these tools
may work for explicit knowledge management—the sorts of information we
can write up in a document and share via a database.
But tacit or implicit knowledge requires more nuanced management
strategies, ways of capturing knowledge that have a lot more to do with
organizational culture and competitive edge than with step-by-step
processes. At Wabash
College, we have struggled with this precise question as we attempt to
understand what it is we do well (and not so well) in educating
students. It has become
clear that curricula and clearly articulated policies and
programs—explicit knowledge—don’t begin to help us fully
understand the culture, the spirit, the élan of the institution—the
knowledge that gives us our edge, if you will. There is not much
guidance out there about how best to get at this tacit knowledge, but
there are some initial benchmarks or signposts to guide us: * Tacit knowledge
points us to the nonlinear ways in which our work gets done.
For example, traditional human resource methods are anathema to
knowledge; who cares how many hours you work, what’s more important is
what you’ve learned and what you need to know to do you job.
We must be willing to look at our organizations in nonlinear ways
and change the ways in which we work to support the ways people know. * Managing knowledge is
all about being ready for change.
And
one of the biggest obstacles to flexibility and agility in an
organization is the culture. So,
if we don’t work on managing the culture, making it more open to
change, we won’t be able as agile as needed to be successful.
Knowledge management then, at its core, is about organizational
culture. * Managing knowledge is
not an end in itself. It
must be a tool in service of organizational priorities and values.
At your social service agency, for example, managing knowledge
must be linked to serving your clients more effectively. This organizational focus helps to make knowledge management
a process that employees share in and embrace—it helps them do their
jobs better. * Managing knowledge
for your organization must be someone’s responsibility.
A trustee here at Wabash is fond of saying: “Someone must wake
up every morning worried about how well we’re managing knowledge.”
Otherwise accountability gets diffused.
Who is responsible for eliciting lessons from organizational
initiatives, documenting results and best practices, helping others to
use what we’ve learned to improve what they do?
Who determines what it means to measure progress?
Who sets the outcome and process measurements to ensure that
we’re reaching the goals and objectives we agreed were most critical? Humorous cartoons
aside, all of us and our organizations are part of the Knowledge
Revolution, and we all are knowledge workers.
The challenge we must not lose sight of is how well we must
manage, position, and value the knowledge (both tacit and explicit) that
is at the heart of our mission-based work (see also, Nancy Dixon,
“Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know,”
Harvard Business School Press, 2000). ****** PRACTICE THIS >> Resilience in
the face of adversity: rules for navigating ambiguity<< The participants in my
management and leadership workshops around the country often describe
workplaces and organizational circumstances that are characterized by
crisis and adversity. Certainly if the number of cell phone calls that interrupt
our sessions are any evidence, it is increasingly difficult for many of
us to get away from the pressures and demands of crisis-driven offices
(especially if the crises are self-defined!) An article in the April
2001 issue of “Fast Company” describes the work of a firm called
Adaptiv Learning Systems, which teaches people to stay resilient in the
face of adversity. Among the principles they teach: * Explain
yourself—dealing effectively with a problem or setback begins with how
you explain it: to yourself and to others.
Too many people learn negative or helpless ways of thinking (what
I have called a “perspective of scarcity” rather than of
“abundance”). The
result is that crisis situations are often explained in ways that
perpetuate, rather than mitigate, adversity.
Adaptiv suggests that we must be reflective about our explanatory
styles, find the patterns in how we frame and explain situations, and
then balance our style with logic and perspective.
Do you explain setbacks as temporary or permanent, as
opportunities or threats? Do you blame others or take all the blame on yourself?
Balanced perspectives help us navigate ambiguous situations. * Don’t
overreact—be careful not to describe what went wrong in terms of
“always” and “everything.”
Counter your extreme tendencies with a more accurate evaluation.
That one word of criticism from your supervisor does not mean
that she is about to fire you. * Act fast, but don’t
rush to judgment—crisis situations certainly require resolve and
timely response, but they don’t necessarily require that we rush to
find out who is to blame or what caused the problem.
Sometimes our rush to judgment takes us down paths that make the
situation worse. Instead, be open to a variety of explanations for what
happened and why. * Keep it in
perspective—Adaptiv suggests that we ask ourselves: What’s the worst
thing that can happen? And what’s the best outcome we could hope for?
Refining those best and worst-case scenarios—and keeping both
of them in front of us—may offer us just what we need to see in order
to find our way. >>Email
rules<< I came upon these
helpful “Ten Commandments of Email According to Intel” and thought
we all might benefit from these tips: * Don’t use your inbox as a catchall folder. Read items once, and answer them immediately if necessary, delete them if possible, or move them to project-specific folders. * Set up a “Five Weeks Folder” that deletes its contents automatically after five weeks. If you worry about an email—perhaps you expect a follow-up call—put in the 5 weeks folder and assume that if something hasn’t happened in five weeks, it’s all right to let it go. * Assist colleagues’ inbox-filtering efforts by agreeing on acronyms to use in subject lines that quickly identify action items and other important messages. Samples might be <AR> Action required; <MSR> Monthly status report; and so on. * Send group email only when it is useful to ‘all’ recipients. Use the “reply to all” and “CC” buttons sparingly. * Ask to be removed from any distribution lists you don’t need to be on. * To cut down on pile-up, use the “out of the office” feature of your email, in addition to voice mail, to notify people when you are away. * When possible, send a message that is only a subject line, so recipients don’t have to open the email to read a single line. End the subject line with <EOM>, the acronym for end of message. * Graphics and attachments are fun, but they slow your ability to download messages—use them sparingly. * If you’re sending an attachment that is larger than 5MB to a large group of recipients, consider putting it on the organization’s website or intranet instead. * Be specific.
If you send a 20-page attachment, tell the recipient that the
important information is on pages 2 and 17. An Intel employee remarks that you have to take ownership of your email and its uses. Junk mail coming to you and inefficient use of email are not acts of God. Do something about it. ****** PAY ATTENTION TO THIS >>Some new
resources<< A few new potential
sources for your reflective practice. Friend and good
correspondent, Joseph L. Price, who teaches and administers at Whittier
College in California, has edited a volume of essays entitled “From
Season to Season: Sports as American Religion” (Mercer University
Press, 2001). Joe has long
been my guide to the links between sports and “ultimate concerns.”
Among his many avocational pursuits, Joe has dedicated himself to
singing the National Anthem in every major league baseball stadium—and
he’s making good progress. A new study, undertaken
by Paul Schervish and his colleagues at the
Boston College Social
Welfare Research Institute, conducted on behalf of the Association of
Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and funded by Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, a
thoughtful business and civic leader in Portland, Oregon, is entitled
“Agent-Animated Wealth and Philanthropy: The Dynamics of Accumulation
and Allocation Among High-Tech Donors.”
Professor Schervish has long been an important voice on the
motivations for philanthropy in America.
This new study offers some well-grounded findings and new
vocabulary to describe what the researchers call an “intercessional
approach” to philanthropy, intervening and applying one’s expertise
and knowledge on behalf of another.
Schervish, et al. see philanthropy emerging as a “vocation”
for high-tech donors, albeit on terms that challenge the status quo for
nonprofits. For more
information, see the AFP website: www.afpnet.org. >>Following
up<< I could fill an entire
issue of Notes with the many interesting essays and articles that help
us keep track of how the Web is challenging us to change the ways in
which we do business. I
trust that you are paying attention to much of this material on your
own—it is so crucial to our organizations, not just because others are
using it better and more responsibly, but because it forces us to think
strategically, to become more reflective organizationally, to consider
what we care most deeply about. I
continue to find Michael Stoner, who leads the new media practice for
Lipman Hearne (a philanthropic communications firm in Chicago), a wise
counselor on current issues with the Web.
Lipman Hearne’s “NET Results” chronicles on a regular basis
what difference new media makes for the nonprofit community.
A recent issue (#27, May 2001) suggests that the Web has proven a
tough taskmaster for nonprofits, especially as it pertains to the
importance of “brand.” Among
the lessons we must learn from the Web: (1) Consistency is
key—visitors to our websites expect clear and consistent visual and
editorial images; (2) Brand is the sum of experience, including the
virtual experience—a poor Web experience has an impact on how our
“brand” is perceived; (3) It’s time to integrate—overcoming
communications sprawl requires that we organize around an identifying
concept, and use the right medium for the job at hand.
To subscribe to “NET Results,” go to www.lipmanhearne.com. >>A different
tonality<< Following reader Phil
Cubeta’s urging that we expand the boundaries of tonalities for our
poetry, I offer this excerpt from Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744)
“An
Essay on Criticism” (1711). Pope’s indictment of those who don’t know themselves or
their “own reach” seems like an important starting point for genuine
reflective practice. What
do you think? Appear in writing or in judging ill; But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ offence To tire our patience, than mislead our sense. Some few in that, but numbers err in this, Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself expose; Now one in verse makes many more in prose. ‘Tis with our
judgments as our watches, none …… But you who seek to
give and merit fame, …… One science only will
one genius fit; May your summer be full
of time and space to stoop to find—or to expand—your genius, your
understanding, and your reach. >>Subscription
information<< Subscriptions to Notes
are simple to establish. Send
me an email at pribbenp@wabash.edu,
ask to be added to the list, and you will receive a confirmation from
the mailserver at Wabash College that you are on the list.
Please feel free to forward your email versions of Notes to
others—they then can subscribe by contacting me.
I also am happy to send Notes as an MS Word attachment to an
email, if that would make reading it easier for some of you.
Just let me know. The
current and archive issues of Notes are available on-line at www.jgacounsel.com. >>Topics for the
next issue (August 2001)<< * Some thoughts from Peter Block on redefining accountability * A meditation on the choices we make * Attention management lessons * The art and science of Reading Lists (c) Paul Pribbenow, 2001 |
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