Transitions. Reflections from (what I hope is) a Social Impact Thoughtful Mentor. Part VIII

My purpose is to support people and organizations through transitions, especially as they seek to do good, better. Please reach out if you need support in these areas.?

Photo explanation. ?This post is about challenging conventional wisdom and in his latest article in The Future Does Not Fit in the Container of the Past , Richard Tobbacowala makes the case that "talent who have options are more likely to be loyal". Given the focus on employee retention, here is his rationale for what seem counter intuitive.

"The best leaders and best companies build and grow talent so that a) they are constantly becoming more valuable in the marketplace, b) better known in the marketplace and c) have many firms trying to recruit them."

"This increases both the success of the firm and the loyalty of the employee for three reasons?a) If one is not growing one’s talent to be the best in the industry how will a company be best in the industry? And if talent is growing to be at the top of their game they are less likely to leave.?b) If one’s talent is well known in the marketplace, they attract both Clients and the next generation of talent who realize that the firm is allowing them to grow their brand and their worth as they grow the firm’s reputation and growth.?c) Being well regarded and constantly building skills allows talent to handle the setbacks that come with one’s career without having to quit since they know they are held in esteem and therefore have options. If one’s market value continues to increase in the firm, one is working at why go anywhere else?"

"Companies do not transform and grow. People do." Love this quote!

Call to Action: Do you have any great examples of challenging conventional wisdom in the social impact sector? If so, please share them with me either here or in private message.??

1. Social Impact Job. The Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa (YSB) is dedicated to supporting vulnerable and at-risk youth, their families and the adults in community, through a diverse variety of programs and services, in both official languages. They are seeking a dynamic Chief Executive Officer (CEO). To learn more or apply, you can reach out to Mike Lupiano at 613.862.2999, Nicole Poirier at 613.915.5030,?or email your CV and cover letter to: [email protected] ?// www.lupianosearch.com // https://www.ysb.ca/blog/ysb-is-seeking-a-new-ceo/ ?
2. Rethinking Diversification of Income Sources. It is conventional wisdom that we should not rely on one source of income to fund our social impact work. When organizations do, it often leads to disastrous results, especially when that one source of funding is government and the funding gets pulled with a change in policy or a change in government - that you did not see coming. It's true for all "single sources" of funding. But when looking deeper, at social impact organizations that have achieved scale (over $50M USD in 2007) it seems they doubled down on securing support from one type of funder - please note this is not talking about one single funder but rather a type of funder. That could be foundations, corporations, or high net worth individuals - as these organizations became skilled at understanding how their work aligns with what that type of funder is seeking. This is something for social impact organizations to consider, does it make sense for us to spread ourselves out, seeking different types of funding from different sources, or should we assess where the best opportunity is for funding and focus there. The answer requires an age, stage and desired outcome discussion. Thanks to Hildy Gottlieb for flagging the work of Kevin L. Brown who re-examined the work of The Bridgespan Group from 17 years ago on How Nonprofits Get Really Bi g - sometimes old insights are worth resurfacing.??
3. Rethinking Institutions. The big brains at Dark Matter Labs (DM) are always challenging conventional wisdom. I just reviewed their work on Designing Next Institution s and while I need a thesaurus handy to understand some of the concepts, I love that they are taking the time to process these ideas to outline ways to tackle the profound and complex challenges we face. They are also inviting your participation. "But facing unprecedented biophysical collapse calls for both a multitude in transitions as well as a new class of distributed sovereignty with relevant types of institutions that can operate horizontally, focused on communities of fate or shared futures as opposed to communities of practice." So what characteristics do you think we need in our Next Institutions??