Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Leadership window podcast with Dr. Patrick Jenks. Each week through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer and a professional speaker.
And now here's Dr. Patrick Jenks.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Hello everyone. It's episode 156 of the Leadership Window. Thanks for coming along. The year is more than half over now. 2026 is leaving us quickly. How's it going for you? What's left? What are you gonna do to in the second half to make the second half better than the first half?
I don't know. I just thought of that just now and as I asked myself that question, it's pretty challenging question. I need to pause with that one.
Thanks for joining us. We have a great conversation today.
This one's going to be pretty, pretty unscripted.
I came in contact with our guest Janine Becker not too long ago and we had a brief offline conversation about the work that she is doing to help organizational founders, funders really any, anyone in the the space of creating social impact, be it be it corporate social enterprise or be it a conventional, more traditional nonprofit, be it a philanthropic foundation.
And she is helping organizations think more deeply.
She works with what she calls purpose led leaders. And we're going to talk about that purpose piece at some point as well because Janine has got a number of different tracks in her work that she's delivering to the world and offering in value and it's just all so fascinating. But she does work particularly in the nonprofit and philanthropic space, helping them to think more strategically, more systemically.
We're going to talk about that word probably a lot today rather than transactionally.
And so I'm, I'm really interested in this conversation, Janine. I'll say it up front and I'll say it in the end. The website to go to and the link is on our podcast page, but it's on purposetogether.com that is Janine's organization on purposetogether.com and we'll talk about the various resources and things that she's doing. She's coming to us from Portland, Oregon. She's out on the West Coast. And Janine, thank you first of all for the outreach and the connection and for carving out time to have a fun conversation with us today.
[00:03:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me on and having me here today.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Well, what did I Miss in my intro, what's the real important thing that people need to know that I didn't cover in the traditional sort of bio that I gave?
[00:03:21] Speaker C: I would say I think it's the mix of I've learned and studied the pieces of the work and what we're going to talk about academically. And then you'll also hear stories of how I've come to them for my own personal growth alongside my clients over the last 15 years. So you'll hear some more of the personal journey there too.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Man, I love that you said that because I experienced that too in, you know, studying organizational leadership in academia is one thing. You learn theory and case studies and all these things, but there's no case study or theory that can inform and educate the way just getting in and experiencing something and not everything can be covered by an academic framework. So I appreciate that you said that. I can relate.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's where I mean, I had taught, I taught negotiation and collaboration at Stanford for a decade.
So I knew the theory. I had trained hundreds of students in the process of negotiation and what it takes to collaborate the skills.
But then I was a solo parent and had to actually ask for help and lean on, support and collaborate, not because it was nice or because I had so much to offer, but because I also had needs. And that, that taught me different skills, skills that I didn't actually ever bring to the classroom, that I now bring to my clients.
The vulnerability and the edge and the gift of that alongside kind of years of study and theory and practice. Right. So the pairing of the two gives me a richer perspective from which to hold space.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Now, I'm interested in what you taught at Stanford. You said negotiation and collaboration. Who, who were these? Student negotiation and what? And collab. How do those two go together? Can you give me just a little sense of what's that class about?
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it was a full term class.
I frame it as around collaboration. The work that I did as an attorney previously was around deals. I was bringing different organizations together to make agreements. And so it was taught in the law school. It was some of the basics of the theory and your kind of classic bargaining for advantage text and win win negotiation. And how do you prepare, how do you open, how do you frame, how do you package options? Right, like that. But to me it was more life skills in some ways of what do you do when you have leverage, how do you relate to risk?
I think there was something powerful for students seeing 15 other adults like them, young adults have the same Set of facts and do you always feel like you have more power or less?
What do you do when the stakes are high and do you know how you relate to difference? So I often still bring into my coaching work the different ways of engaging with difference. Do you compete, do you compromise, do you accommodate or do you collect? Collaborate. And so I talk about it as negotiation and collaboration because most of what those students are going to do going forward is not formal settlement agreements that are just strictly negotiate, zero sum game. Most of what we're doing in life is crafting ways to understand other people's perspectives and needs and see how we can relate with those in a way that ours also get met and collaborate. Well, I just find it interesting that
[00:07:08] Speaker B: those two are together. You know, when I think negotiation and not being formally trained in it at all, we think about negotiation as win, lose or compromise.
But compromise isn't the word you've used here. You've used collaborate. And I think that's really interesting. I mean there's negotiating again, negotiating to win, right? Yeah, I want to get, I want to come out on top of this deal and leverage my power and my influence and all that.
You're talking about negotiating to collaborate, like collaboration being a part of the negotiating objective.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Absolutely. Right. I think, I mean it's different if I'm going to just buy a car. There's one deal point, there's one price point. It's good or bad wherever it's at. Right. But, but longer term, even organizational deals or partnerships or strategic alliances, a, you know, nonprofit leader might be making or a relationship with a funder, it isn't just about the amount of money you're building a relationship, you're scaling it over time. You're. There's more factors than just one that kind of is coming in higher, low.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: So how has that work led you into what you're doing now? And by the way, what are you doing now? Like what's the, what is the, what are you doing in the world that brings you meaning and bring. Brings others value?
[00:08:28] Speaker C: I appreciate the framing that way. I think what I'm doing now is partnering with purpose led leaders to really think about how grow their impact in a way that leverages both their internal team and the relationships there, as well as kind of a broader ecosystem or a broader network.
I'm helping leaders look at not just putting their organization at the center of the work they're doing, but think about the bigger systems they want to shift, the bigger impact they want to have and how is their organization and how are they personally contributing to that and who else is in needed at the table?
So to me I talk about my work as that place where personal growth meets strategy. Like yes, you want to have a bigger impact and who do you need to be as a leader to be the catalyst to be cultivating the conditions for that to be possible?
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, you, you, you also got my attention and some, I don't remember where I found it but your, your work in your study in vertical development and that's been a field that we've focused on a lot. The work of Bill Torbert and Action Inquiry and the vertical development stages being our, our sort of capacity, not our competencies.
And, and I, that's a great way to connect, that is connecting organizational strategy to our, the stage we are in our worldview and our, our, our vertical development, how we bring personal development into, into leading strategy work.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think right. I, I studied with cultivating leadership in some of Jennifer Garvey Berger's work. So I was a student there for, for two years and, and kind of went deep in that, in that direction. But for me, I think when I see with my clients right now so many, if we're focusing on purpose, on making a difference, there's a level of complexity right now. There's multiple perspectives. There's your organization, whatever it is, however big it is, cannot solve this by itself.
So that shift in personal and kind of development to be able to hold multiple perspectives, to be able to see the value of your contribution and to know that it's partial, I think to do that kind of systems level work require, it's an invitation for growth.
It's hard to do without actually having shifting the meaning that you make about your contribution and the role that you
[00:11:09] Speaker B: play one of the most. And I don't know when it happened, I guess it's still happening. Maybe more and more I tend to see my life as somewhere a point where it clicked for me to say I don't know, nearly what I thought I knew.
And then the place where you go, that's actually really exciting.
It's liberating to say that, to say the words I don't know.
And part of the vertical development right is moving from certainty to inquiry and certainly say why, why does this work the way this, this works in our coaching world you'll, you'll appreciate this. You know, in our coaching world we'll often hear, I'll often have a coachee present to me a very specific leadership challenge which is usually a kind of a Management, very technical sort of challenge. How do I get Susie to do her reports on time?
Something. Something that simple.
[00:12:17] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: And they want the coach to help them solve that problem.
And when I learned to ask questions like, tell me, tell me how.
Tell me your leadership style.
How do you lead Susie and the others? How do they respond to your leadership? What kind of system have you created that allows someone to not turn in their reports on time, maybe even rewards it?
What are the systemic things that are happening that if we fix those. Susie's not the issue.
It's a path problem. Maybe it's a systems problem. When I learn to ask more questions like that, my coaching. My coaching just really opened up for people.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: I can feel that. I mean, I can feel the difference between. I'm not stepping in to solve your problem. My hope is that I elevate the question you're asking. Right. It's to play right there.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: With. With that tension. And so I feel like. I see that. I feel like I see this edge often with clients who've moved from a subject matter expert to a leadership position where they now are holding areas they don't have expertise in. And kind of the imposter syndrome or the terror of like, but I don't have the answers. I'm like, perfect. Yeah, that's not your job.
So now we get to say, all right, well, what is your job? If it isn't to have all the answers, what is the job? To lead from this seat.
And I think, to me, that's one of the gifts from coaching, is that they get to experience. My clients get to experience that for me. And I've had clients say, like, oh, you regularly ask me questions where I'm like, I should have asked that. I should have asked myself that. But now I turn and I ask my. Now I turn and I behave that way. Right. I invite my.
They invite their team into the kind of inquiry they receive in coaching. And that's part of the gift.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Oh, man. All right, this is. This is getting really rich. This is the kind of stuff. Well, let me ask you this.
How do you. A big question here that I'm going to ask you to answer simply for us.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: How do I.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: How do you help a leader think more systemically? Like, where do you start when. When you're leading an organization? Let's say. Let's say it's a community nonprofit. I work with a lot of those.
And, man, their. Their challenges is.
It's pretty simple. Right? Man, we're trying to address homelessness, and, man, we Got funding challenges and we got. We see our world from, from our point of view. We see need out there. We have these services, we have these ideas. We get grants for them. We do these things.
How do you get leaders like that to see and think?
Because it's a mindset shift. It's a habit change to think.
What's the system? Both. Both the outside system that's bigger than us and the smaller systems that are a part of us.
Where's your starting point for helping leaders to think differently that way?
[00:15:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm thinking of a particular client who is actually at a foundation who came in.
They're primarily focused on working with immigrants and refugees. And she came in just with a sense of urgency, like, how do I move a million dollars fast?
Just like. And that was the question she presented. Like I wanted. Our grantees are in trouble.
Things feel very uncertain and unstable and unsafe. Right. That. That was the question.
And I will say what I noticed with her was she was both. It both felt urgent and heartbreaking.
Both she had the question. And I feel like a lot of client of people like you're talking about of like, right. How do I help with homelessness right now in my community? It's urgent and there's also a sense of it's not enough.
So I feel like my first.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially in the field. So you, you named, you know, refugees, immigration, you know, things that are, those are homelessness. We could go into domestic violence. There are some heavy, heavy, complicated systems and issues out there. And it's really overwhelming for a passionate social sector leader to dive into that world. And you, you knowing, knowing you're not going to save them all, you're not going to fix it all.
You're going to have your, you're going to have losses.
Yeah. And. But you got it. But you got to, you got to stay in it.
I mean there's, there's got to be just a ton of your work around.
Again, the person and the self care and the how do I keep that there?
[00:17:05] Speaker C: But I think in this move, in this moment, you know, that the opening door for me is shifting it from like, how do I do this thing fast to bigger picture. I asked like, right.
I said, you seem like that's, that's not enough. That's heartbreakingly small. So tell me what's actually needed here?
Like, what do you really want?
What do you really see as possible? What do you really see as needed?
Because it shifted from the what can my organization do, what I can do today to like, bigger picture. What's needed. You have any of those leaders in any of those organizations touching any of those systems you just named have a bigger sense of the ecosystem than they're focused on in that, in that quarter, in that month, in that program cycle and that granting cycle?
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: They have a bigger. So she did, she said, okay, like, here's what's needed. Here's what I see is actually needed. It's a great.
How much resources available for that that you have and kind of who else needs to be at that table.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: What I love about that framing our listeners will relate to because they've heard us talk about this a lot and we've had people like Hildy Gottlieb on to talk about changing the questions and thinking creatively. And she is the one who got me onto the concept of appreciative inquiry.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: And the idea. You didn't ask her, well, what's the biggest problem you're facing?
You asked her what's needed and how would we get. What would it take to get there and where can we find those resources and those possibilities? It's a whole different framing than what are the big barriers that you've got to overcome, the big brick walls that have got you stuck. That conversation doesn't move us forward.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: No. I think especially when you're trying to shift out of this urgent band aid one cycle mode into a bigger, bigger frame is to help someone just see where they fit in it. So if I can see the bigger need, I can see the wider ecosystem. And my other question is, great, what's. What's your unique contribution to that mix? What does your organization do that others can't? Who are you touching? Who are you coordinated with? Who are you in relationship with?
It doesn't have to be that you have the most money or the most people, but what's your unique piece of that puzzle?
And that rather than feeling like, right, you said you can't save them all, you can't do it all. That's true.
But what is it? What is uniquely your role?
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: And I think that's a piece of the conversation.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Uniquely your role is a really big one for our work, Janine, because that points to mission.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: So your organizational mission is not the why, it's not the, you know, the world needs saving. The mission is the world needs saving and we can't do it alone. There's an ecosystem. There's a lot of people working on the problem for different angles. I. Our role, our impact is here. This is what we can do. And that's charge, that's mission. And so I appreciate that.
I'd like to share something with you because I'd like our listeners to. I don't know that I've ever shared this.
I was working with a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate here in South Carolina, and I noticed as we were working, it was strategic planning, engagement, and the team kept using the word systems change. We want to be about systems change.
And I paused and I asked, what do you mean by that?
And I paused because I had realized how much I was hearing that term from nonprofits.
We're about systems change.
And yet when you ask them what that is, many of them, if not most of them, had a really hard time defining what they mean by that. It's a.
In.
In some ways, it's a buzzword.
It's a. It's a. It's trendy and it's, you know, the sectors you. Oh, yeah, it sounds like, intuitively systems change. That sounds right. You know, but so we're. Yeah, let's be about that. I kind of get it. But when you ask them to define it for their work, what it meant. And so we had this impromptu systems change theory session.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: And what came out of that, and I won't go through all of it. I'll give you a few examples. Most people, if you think about Habitat for Humanity, they build houses one house at a time.
People who understand them a little bit better know that they build houses for people who. Who. They're trying to create home ownership for a family that would not be able to access it otherwise. The family has sweat equity into the work. So they. They help build the house, and funders and financiers and things help to make it all possible.
But they're building one house at a time. And in many communities where Habitat resides, one house at a time is great, but funders are starting to go, yeah, but is that changing the game? You know, you built six houses this year.
That's great. It's wonderful. But have you looked at the big. Have you looked at the big issue here?
So. So this is why Habitat was saying, we really want to get it systems change. So we asked them to define it, and they defined systems change. Love your take on this, by the way, Janine. Good, bad, or otherwise, they defined. And again, I'm not. I'm not the systems expert. You are. I just know that words mean things, and they needed to define it.
So they defined it as. Systems change is influencing fundamental improvement of embedded community structure.
Systems change results in greater and easier Access to affordable housing for all families. So they started with defining it.
Yeah, it's very different than we build houses. Right.
And then we asked them, okay, so over the next three years, what do you do to change systems?
And they started with some aspirational statements. We want to shape public perception of affordable housing as a driver of community health.
We want to make affordable housing a public funding priority with a dedicated funding stream. Now they're talking affordable housing. They're talking home ownership. You're not talking about. We want to help in one house. Right. One. One family in need. So you get the idea. They built a whole structure for it. And what their efforts. What they're now. Because then we asked, okay, that's great. That's all concept. What's the work?
And they. They ended up defining what their key. What the things were that they could do to impact systems. So I don't know, I'd love your reaction to that. I know it's not perfect, but it's made them pause in a moment and go, wow, these aren't the conversation. These aren't the questions we've been asking.
[00:24:14] Speaker C: Right.
I think that's. I think it's that moment of picking our head up from the. Like the individual work to say what's right. What. What's the. What's the upstream work that's needed here? What is the bigger picture? How is our work contributing to a broader ecosystem? And it sounds like that opportunity to define it was the, you know, the highest leverage point is that paradigm shift. Like, I think I've studied with the Academy for Systems Change and some of Donell Meadow's work there. And at that kind of the highest leverage point for system. In the system is that. Is that perception, is that paradigm. And so it went from one house at a time to, we are contributing to affordable structure for affordable housing for all. I think some paraphrase of what you just said. Right.
And a totally different strategy emerged from that paradigm shift.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: And I think that's what I see with my, you know, with the client I was. I was talking about before.
It went from how do I move a million dollars fast? To here's the need, here's how my organization is contributing. The one thing I want to add to what you had said about it is it's the organizational mission, but was also her own personal resource. So what she noted as we talked about was like, oh, I personally have relationships across this ecosystem. I'm somebody who could bring people together, bring them to the table, or if we. If we run our grant cycle in this way, and I talk about it with these people, I can bring other resources to bear. And so it went from a. A million dollar quick program to four and a half million dollars from her organization and multiple others funding 80 additional organizations. Because the shift went from how do I do this quickly to band Aid my existing grantees, to what's needed, what's my unique contribution, my organization, but also me personally as a leader.
It allowed her to say, okay, here's what the grant team can do, but program team and the advocacy team, here's how we're going to partner with the other parts of our internal organization and here are the other organizations, the people that I can call that I can move with me. But it, it shifted to a, a broader view of the ecosystem. And I think for a lot of nonprofit leaders, a lot of foundation leaders, they have, they think about the organizational mission and where the organization fits. And I just want to name the part about what are your resources, what are your relationships? Who can you call in and say, all right, here's where we're going, here's what I see as my contribution and here's my invitation. Here's how I see you playing a role in this and inviting them in more intentionally.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Let me ask you this, and I don't know the number, so I'm curious as to your experience on it. Do you see more nonprofits, the grantees wishing that funders would think and fund more systemically, or do you see more funders wishing that nonprofits would function more systemically?
[00:27:40] Speaker C: I don't know that I have an answer on which unbalance. I think I'm right now working with some of both.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: So I will see it. You know, I working with some nonprofits in the focus on gender equity and technology to support organizations focused on women and girls. And one group has now they've just did a landscape analysis of 250 organizations globally in the space. And looking at this desire, there's a strong desire of nonprofits are seeing less. Well, they're seeing less resource coming. There's more resource constraint and there's more of a sense of we have to do it differently, that we've been isolated and separate and contributing and all sort of making a play for a very small and shrinking pool of funds.
So I think on the nonprofit side, there's a sense of how do we do this differently? And I think on the funder side, there's also a sense of right, we've been.
The needs are growing, the complexity is there.
Federal government in some ways has pulled resources out and there's in different areas and different, whether that's healthcare or education, there's sort of a sense of all right, how are we going to step in and make a difference bigger than what we've done in the past? And so I think on both sides you're seeing this moment of maybe it's a good, I'm hoping for a little bit more of a tipping point or at least a moment where there's the inquiry of what we've been doing isn't enough. So now what?
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's good. I, we. I remember when I was in leading an organization and we were looking for some grant funds to convene and facilitate around early childhood in our community, particularly kindergarten readiness.
And we went to a large foundation, a regional foundation.
And I remember I was, this was, you know, early in my org leadership experience and I remember going and talking to the funder. We had a, a good relationship with them. They were local, so relationship was, was as important as content and sat down and I said, hey, you know, just early conversation. But what would be the feasibility, would there be interest from the foundation to provide say a million dollars over the next five years to help us plan and start doing some things in early childhood to move this needle? He said, very little interest in that.
I said, really? He goes, yeah, what we might be interested in is $5 million over two or three years to build a real structure for long term change.
And that was a big learning moment for me and a great, a great gift from the foundation director at the time who was just a gift to this small rural southern Virginia town. But what a statement.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: But I think that is the moment of stop looking small and siloed and take a bigger picture. So I think part of the work that I've been doing with this group called Connected Power around gender equity in women and Girls is actually meeting and doing, interviewing many funders to see what their perspective is and what would have them say yes and what would have them interested. And what we're hearing is around collaboration. More organizations coming together is one of the things that would be attractive. Bigger bets, but also a sense of all right, we want to see the big systems change, but we also need to know that there's experiments, that there's work happening now that there's, it's not just the 100 million dollar big grant, big systems change, it's how is building towards that inspiring smaller shifts along the way.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yep, yep. I'm also seeing a growing number actually. I know A number of them right now of consultants in the nonprofit consulting space. And I'm, I'm a leadership coach. That's where my world mostly lives. But in the nonprofit consulting space, I'm seeing more consultants move toward community consulting, you know, bringing systems together to talk and to try to create collaboration things like, you know, any, anything. We've talked about housing and homelessness, but I've seen a lot of it happen in the space of early childhood transportation in a community. Right. So it's not how does one nonprofit fix the transportation issue, it's how does the community talk about it, know it, dream together, act together, pool resources together and say we're fit. So I'm seeing more of that and I'm, I'm saying that to ask you, do you spend any time in that space where you find yourself communicating or consulting rather with full communities and, and cohorts and collaboratives?
[00:33:00] Speaker C: I do it. So my work, my coaching and some of my organizational consulting work is on purpose together. But I also work in collaboration with a network called Weaving Futures. And through that group, we focus on impact networks. It's exactly what you're speaking about, bringing cross sector groups together to define, spark and sustain the systems change that they're looking for, whether that's related to healthcare or education.
Right. In various areas. But I think that's an area where we both do training for leaders doing that work and also do the consulting, do the, you know, run convenings and provide ongoing advising for the organ for the groups that are coming together where no one organization is, you know, owning and driving the change. But it is a collaborative effort.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, the, the big move over the last, what, 20 years is the collective impact.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: And you know, the framework that came out of Stanford, as a matter of fact, and what I find with that is there, there have been some effective collective impact initiatives and work, but it kind of also turned into one of those terms that people use a little too loosely. We're doing a collective impact thing, not necessarily using the framework that is verily very carefully structured systemically.
Yeah, you know, the mutual, the mutually enforcing activities and the, the shared metrics and agreed upon goals and resourcing and yes, having a backbone organization, but you know, how do you build the work groups and the, a real collaboration that is cross sector, cross organizational, even across geographies in some case.
And so there's a, there is a, I'm saying all this to say there's a discipline of learning you opened up talking about, you know, there's academic frameworks and then there's living it.
I. I find a lot of leaders relying a little too heavily on the living it without the learning. Like there. There are some structures and some. There are concepts of systemic thinking and design and collective impact and mutual and things.
And a lot of it is around the discipline to pause and learn those things. Well,
[00:35:36] Speaker C: yeah. I mean, I think back to even when I was teaching negotiation, right. Some students in my class that had just graduated college had no work experience. And so they could absorb the theory, but they didn't have as much to.
Of their own life experience to draw in. And then I've taught people who've been negotiating for 30 years, and I think there's a moment where you can take your practice, you can take what you've been doing, and you can put it through the filter of some of these frameworks and actually understand why things, maybe a deeper understanding of why things are working or why they're not, what to lean on, what you actually discovered organically and where might be some blind spots. And so that's where I love. You know, part of my work in the past was running a Cohort for foundation CEOs for six months. We brought in some of these frameworks, and we talked about collaboration. We talked about decision making and shared decision making and how to be decisive and inclusive. So we had these conversations. But you add a framework on top of so much experience and skill, and finally it can be like jet fuel.
So it isn't about pause, stop what you're doing, go get the degree. It's about how do you deepen the learning. And you mentioned collective impact. I think that's an area.
What I'm talking about with networks is similar, but it's not exactly the same in the sense that, that you don't necessarily need to have all shared metrics and shared outcomes to drive a collective change.
But they're different frameworks and they're important for different reasons. And so I think there's a bit of what is it you're trying to do, with whom, to what end? And then to know enough or to bring in the guidance to say, all right, what are the frameworks that would serve us and how do we choose best, given where we're intending to go?
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, you're right on the whole shared metrics thing.
There's a piece of the work that's shared, right. In a collective impact, everyone still has their own individual missions, their own brand identities, their own, you know, their own need to solve, to operate in their. In their world, but there's a portion of it, it collectively that is shared.
You've talked about shared ownership.
What does that look like on the ground in, in an organization that in organizations that have been historically either founder led, siloed the grant by grant piece, what does shared ownership actually look like? And maybe it's the metrics, but that's the ownership of it.
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I'm curious. Maybe it's my background as an attorney. Like I get curious about what you mean by ownership. What does that mean and for whom?
So is that, is it about shared decision making within an organization? It's about shared, Kind of the shared intention or coming together to set the outcomes that are wanted in a larger collaboration? I think often when I see that an organization that's wanting that people, the, especially for trust based organizations, people that operate in that way, that are used to having a very participatory process, whether it's a foundation that's being more participatory and trust based with its grantees or grantees that are, you know, nonprofits that are active in a community in a participatory way. And then there's questions about it's harder to have a kind of a command control, leadership structure while you're doing that kind of work.
And so how can you as a leader live the values internally that match the external work you're doing in the world?
And how can you both be decisive in your leadership and set a clear strategy and bring people on board while allowing for enough autonomy and enough participation for people to feel like there's a resonance between the values that you're actively fostering in the broader work and how you. And how you live internally.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: That was, that was a lot right there. You know, I. And it is a good question, what's shared ownership? We could do a whole episode just unpacking that. You know, it's that we're celebrating what, the 250th birthday of the United States of America, which was formed as kind of an experiment in some shared ownership.
Right. How does that look different than, you know, than other forms of government, forms of society?
And you know, where have we done well at sharing that ownership? And where, where are we not doing well? You know, right now it's really tough to, to find that spot.
[00:40:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: But you know, it's everything from a country to a community to an organization. The leaders, the leaders inside one organization to share ownership.
[00:40:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: A staff team, a staff leadership team. How are they sharing ownership of the mission of the organization?
So that's what I mean, it can be really anything from, from something small to something big, but where it's not just, hey, I only own what's on my job description. And my. It's transactional, as you say, I own my piece. Here's the delivery of it versus we're all, we all own this collectively.
[00:41:15] Speaker C: I hear what you're speaking to more. I mean, I feel like I had a client who came into the work, wanted support for his team because everybody was.
If there was a problem, it was more looking at whose it was and pointing a finger over there rather than everybody stepping in and saying, how do we contribute to fixing this? And so ownership from the perspective of I own, I'm a part of. I see myself responsible for the larger success of this mission and not just my piece of the puzzle. And I think that was a lot of interesting work to kind of build that sense of trust and collaboration and engagement and a shift of what is mine to do.
I hear that. I think that's, that's good work. I'm curious where you see that. What does it mean to you with the sense of shared ownership? Where, where do you see that?
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Well, again, I think it's multiple parties sharing at least a piece of.
We've used the word accountability a lot in our work and I've def. You know, I using Peter Block's definition of, of accountability as the ability to account.
And rather than it being this, this consequence of not doing your work right, you'll be held accountable.
It's an ability. It's the ability to account. And so how so to me, shared ownership is mutual accountability.
How are we collectively increasing our ability to account for what we're trying to achieve, to account for our, our collective commitments and our individual ones that, that contribute to the shared win.
So I don't know. I don't know that I can define it any better than that right now.
[00:43:06] Speaker C: No, I mean, I appreciate that. I feel like to me sometimes the way that looks in a leadership meeting is the difference between everyone reporting out about where they stand, related to their objectives, you know, their stoplight chart of red, yellow, green versus that document is a pre read. And what the meeting is for is the dialogue around where you stuck. So celebration, right? What is it to be celebrating?
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Where are we?
[00:43:37] Speaker C: We haven't celebrated yet.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Where are we stuck?
[00:43:39] Speaker C: Yeah. And then it's also right, what are the questions or the challenges that are beyond your area that need to be wrestled with together? And so I have one client where, you know, some of our work right now is shift the leadership meetings from report out conversations that, where accountability looks like being visually being seen as I did it or I didn't do it to accountability and shared ownership. Meaning I'm showing up to celebrate wins and to work through challenges together collectively so that we have the outcome. Because we are, we're showing up with, with the awareness that, that it isn't so siloed. The solutions that are needed, the challenges that are present can't be solved by any of those one leaders. And so just shifting the leadership meetings from, from readouts to dialogue has been the place that's pivoted some of that, that shared ownership.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Taylor and Chait and one other author, I can't remember the names of them but the governance as leadership or leadership as governance, I forget, I forget what the order was. But that talks about board meetings and board meetings being report outs and being, you know, that fiduciary becomes perfunctory and where's the generative conversation and dialogue? Where's the strategic conversation? Yes, and dialogue. I did some research for a book I wrote on strategic planning almost 10 years ago now and served at 100 nonprofits across the country. And we asked them how often their boards meet, and the average was six times a year. And then we asked him how long were their board meetings and the average was an hour.
So we started with the, we started with the math of, okay, so on average then the nonprofit board is meeting six hours a year together, not counting committee meetings or any individual contributions, but as a governing body, they were together in a room for six hours a year. And then the next question we asked was how much of that six hours is at the strategic and generative level of conversation versus the operational perfunctory report outs.
You know, questions about why copy paper costs more this month than it did last month. Those kinds of things.
87 of the 100 organizations said that less than half of their six hours was at the generative strategic level. So now we're talking under three hours a year that the volunteer governing body of this mission, you know, that's getting a tax break because they've made this social promise to the community, less than three hours a year on that. So you're really onto it when you say we got to change the way we meet and staff leadership. Yeah, that same way we have this, just this cadence that we do that where we think we got to come in and say, well, this is what the program department's working on this week and what we did last week and, and here's what the fundraising department did last week. And yeah, those are not. Somebody said report outs are literally conversations about things you can no longer do anything about.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: I mean, sometimes it's useful context. Right. People need to know what's happening outside information pre read. Like in the best case scenario, that's what you've read ahead so that you can show up prepared.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: I think that's where theoretically you've read ahead.
[00:47:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: The idea is that they read it.
[00:47:10] Speaker C: But I think what I see from my clients is that when the conversation builds on them, when it actually requires when in order to engage in the. When there's an expectation of dialogue, in order to gauge in the dialogue means you have read at least briefly what's there. Right. It's different. I feel like I see that from nonprofit boards I've sat on as well.
If the board chair had that expectation. You've read you're coming in and here are the three questions we're going to wrestle with together. They're. Come prepared to wrestle with them.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:41] Speaker C: It's a different conversation.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And back to, back to shared ownership. I'll say one more thing and then I want to slightly shift gears for just a few minutes and then we'll wrap here. Before long.
We do an increasing amount of what we call systemic team coaching in our work. So leadership, senior leadership teams in particular, understanding their role in leading a system and that they are a system that they lead systems that they're a part of systems. And you know that the telescoping view.
And one of the things that we tell C suite leaders is that they have two jobs.
One is whatever C whatever letter follows their C right from the cfo. One of my jobs is to lead and, and drive decision making and growth in our, in our financial function. If I'm the CMO that my job is marketing, right?
[00:48:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: But your second job as a member of the C suite is membership in the C suite.
It is a. There is a leadership team that, that many organizations, and particularly nonprofits don't use C suites. They use senior leadership teams.
Okay.
What's the job of a member of a senior leadership team, regardless of the letters or the title behind their directorship? That's the shared ownership space.
What is it we're doing as a team that we can only accomplish as a team and not a set of five senior directors and that with helping them see what their shared ownership as a leadership team is not just. Back to your point. Well, here's what we're working on in finance and here's what we're working on in marketing. And we all go back to our corners and go back to our work.
[00:49:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I appreciate that. I work with a framework kind of around Team 1 with similar work. But looking at. To me, I also talk with clients about just the distinction between a smart organization that you can technically do the skills, right? You've got the finance, you've got the marketing, you've got your product or your programs, you've got that piece down. And then it also needs to be healthy. Right. High morale, low turnover, ability to solve problems, to adapt, to handle complexity, to notice a mistake and address it quickly. That is a different set of skills. And so for leaders, it's both their area of technical expertise and then the second thing is their ability to work together. And the third is the stewardess, steward of the culture. How are you actually contributing to that in a broader way?
[00:50:31] Speaker B: Well said. That's. I love that framing.
All right, I want to shift gears here.
You. I read a chapter that you wrote in a book on, in a book, Trailblazer Secrets, and you wrote a chapter in that book. And I found your.
I found your construct. First of all, let me just compliment the way you took a very short chapter and said a lot in a few words. So I really appreciated that.
I'm thinking, even right now, your, your chapter in your book was a little bit more personal about personal calling, fulfilling your personal calling, answering it, responding to it, purpose calling.
And you, you mention some polarities that we face. I'm going to have you walk through them in a minute before you walk through those.
Oh, how do I, how do I. How am I trying to set this up? I know what I'm trying to say.
The polarities that you've set up, the whole construct of your chapter, if I. I got it right at all, was that it's not an either or.
It's not. Well, I can either do this or I can do that.
The same applies to organizations.
One of the polarities that I see a lot is, well, we can go fast or we can go far.
And I've challenged that.
I want to know, can we go far fast?
I'm not, I'm not resigned to the fact that we have to pick one of those. We were doing an exercise the other day with a team, and you've probably heard this in marketing, you can have it fast, you can have it cheap, or you can have it good.
[00:52:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: But you got to pick no more than two of those because you can't have all three.
And my mind goes why not?
What if you could, what if it could be fast, cheap and quality all at the same time? I think there probably are things like that. So, so just thinking about polarity and your questioning of the binary, the, the, you know, prison of two ideas, as they say, I would love for you to just take a few minutes and walk through these six Cs, these three polarities, and just to describe them enough to pique people's interest because I just thought they were beautifully framed.
[00:53:21] Speaker C: Thank you.
Maybe I'll take one to step back and say the chapter and really the work is around how I talk about purpose led leaders and the sense of they're drawn to do make a contribution. It's not because we inherited this and it's not because we have to that there's a choice about. I feel compelled to do this thing.
And I find for whether it's a foundation leader, a social enterprise leader, nonprofit leader, if it's really coming from that place of like deep calling, I trust that the work is needed in the world, that what you're bringing is important. But if it really is edgy enough for you to be like, this is what I'm going to devote myself to, there's something there for you. There's some way in which this is here to evoke your own growth, your own evolution. I think for leaders that have been in that work for years, it's this particular job or this particular role. There's some reason you said yes.
And I get curious and I think often people come to leaders come to you or I in that moment where there's this deep call and there's also some question. And so, so these polarities are really about how do you expand the impact that you have in the world, but also recognize how this role is here to help you grow.
And so the first polarity is compassion and curiosity. So I feel like compassion is the sense of the shared humanity of. It's hard whether that's hard because you've got.
I've had moments this year where I had work, things that needed to happen and a team that needed support while my daughter's sick and my mom's, you know, needing her own care and sort of, I'm pulled in many directions and there's more than I can do, than I can do in a day or in a week for the leaders that we see. You know, there's. There's this sense of just slowing down and having some compassion for ourselves.
Some sense of like what I'm struggling with is not unique to me.
And maybe pausing just long enough to actually feel the, you know, we talked about, you mentioned earlier kind of these systems, whether it's poverty or homelessness or domestic violence, that it, there is a, an emotional weight to the work right now that's worth holding and naming and honoring.
And I think some coaching just stops there. Right. We're going to talk about self care. We're going to just process how to hold that. We're going to work with the emotions around that all important.
And what I'm actually pairing that with is some curiosity, like what is the unique challenge for you?
What is unique to you about your own history and your set of circumstances that makes this hard in a way that it might be inviting some girls growth.
So I've seen that whether that was a, an executive director who in just in this inquiry, like yes, she was struggling and yes there was a lot to feel through, but there was also some sense of she was actually being invited, whether that was from her teenage daughter or her board in that moment to learn a whole new lesson about boundaries and being able to assert what she needed and say no.
And so there's something about this curiosity that says, okay, there's something unique in this for me. Can I pay attention to that? What's, what's my growth edge here?
And so you'll see, I think some coaching will lean on one or the other. We'll just say like, all right, there's a growth edge here, let's drive through it. And others were going to say, oh, let's slow down and do self care. And my senses to really grow in this moment, you need both.
Your impact needs both, your heart needs both, your growth needs both.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I'm an action oriented coach. And so one of the things that I'm always wanting to do is help my leaders get to some kind of action. Like we can talk theory and we can talk concept and we can have great conversations and you know, get into psychological stuff if you want to. But if it doesn't change anything, what was the point?
And so what I do, my, my challenge is I sometimes will move too quickly to the action space and not pause long enough for the curiosity, the inquiry, the dive deeper. What's driving this? And you know, the quintessential how does that make you feel? Question that is that that really is more about, you know, what, why is, why does this, I noticed this pulls out, felt this emotion in you. I can hear your voice change. I can see your. Yeah. Whenever you talk about this thing, tell me where's that coming from? What's that going? So spending more time there.
And so for me, that's been a challenge of polarity. Well, is it action or is it reflection? Yes.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: Right. I mean, because I think actually that you. You talked about, can I go fast and fire? My sense is yes, if you know where you're going, if you're fully aligned for the action.
[00:58:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:31] Speaker C: Right. Well.
[00:58:33] Speaker B: And if you've got a vehicle up,
[00:58:35] Speaker C: you know, if some part of me is holding back because I'm conflicted or I have. I haven't made space or. Right. I feel like right now I had a client who is another leader in a nonprofit, and in the particular field that she's in, there was just a lot of her team was struggling. They were not necessarily feeling safe. There were some. Some challenges.
And she said, I feel like all I'm doing is holding space. And I said yes.
And she kind of looked at me and she was like, oh, oh, that's the work right now. Oh, right. My team, the leaders that I coach, they're capable of taking action. They don't need an accountability partner. If they're aligned, if they had space to feel and to think for a moment, the action comes fast. Good.
[00:59:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good.
Yeah. Go ahead.
[00:59:26] Speaker C: Should I continue? Yeah.
The second polarity is I'm capable and I need to collaborate.
So this capable part is, what is my genius? What is my joy? What am I capable of? How do I actually drive and move into that place of action and collaborate is. And whatever my genius joy, contribution is, it's not enough.
And I think there's some coaches that would say we're just going to work on that feeling of not enough. We're going to fix that, we're going to remove that, we're going to hypnotherapy that away because you are enough. And. And I guess what I'm here to say is, like, you're. You're not. And that's perfect.
Yeah. Your contribution, as big and powerful it is, can't fix the system by itself. So.
Right. How can you bring yours fully and invite and notice that when that feeling of not enough is there, rather than fight it, fix it, deny it, push it down, it's notice, like, okay, who else. Who else is needed?
[01:00:34] Speaker B: Now that's good. And I'm seeing another, like a third dimension on top of that, which is not only is.
Not only are my capabilities not enough to do certain things, but others aren't as well. So my contribution to them is purposeful. My contribution As a part of a collaboration is not just I'm getting help, I'm also giving help. We're making. We're making things stronger by collaborating.
[01:01:05] Speaker C: Absolutely. I think that's part of why I love in my group program, collective council, like having people see each other's strengths and contributions. Sometimes it's so much easier to see in another leader that they are both extremely capable and absolutely needing support and that they. That that. Right. That there's a giving and receiving support is the same thing that actually bringing other people in, inviting them in.
You know, like this foundation client that the. Her program that went from a million dollars moved to four and a half other organizations by contributing to her vision, moved more money, got a more systemic access. Right. Built new relationships and collaborations that what she was providing, what she needed was also an invitation for someone else to show up. So I appreciate you saying that.
[01:01:58] Speaker B: That's good. And the, the third set of seats
[01:02:03] Speaker C: is around courage and care.
So I think again, often, you know, especially for those who are, you know, really kind of drive, it's that sense of like, gotta get it done, drive right over the limits.
But it's to.
To go boldly and including delegate boldly. Like, I feel like I've listened to some of your other episodes where you talk about, you know, delegate significantly. I would say, you know, to hear my word would be delegate boldly. See how you can invite people in and bring care that it's not either or either I'm gonna, I'm gonna just tend to myself and I'm gonna stay in my comfort zone or I'm gonna be courageous and I'm gonna armor up and I'm gonna drive through. But I think for leaders, part of the vulnerability, part of what brings people with you is to. Is to be courageous and share about it is.
I'm not exactly sure where this is how this is going to go. And here's our experiment today. Here's. I'm how I'm going to show up today and bring that. Here's what I know and here's transparently what I don't. And here's how we're going to discover if this is the right path together.
[01:03:13] Speaker B: Yep. And especially in the social sector, environment leaders who.
Put your head down. Keep, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. I know it's hard, but weather the storm, you're carrying the weight of the world. You got to do it. Nobody else is doing it. Wear the cape, be the hero.
And that's courageous.
And it's also destructive eventually.
And so yeah, that. That care. Pardon. It can't. It can't be the other. It's got to be both. I appreciate that.
There's a. I think it's Mark Thompson.
He wrote in, in a book. I was a part of a book a number of years ago, too. Wrote a chapter in a book called Taking the Leap. And it's about. Is about launching a coaching business.
And Mark Thompson wrote in the book that sometimes we have to make things happen and sometimes we have to let things happen.
And the ability to know when's the right time to do which to push through. You know, you hear this, hey, if it is to be, it's up to me. You got to get out there and make it happen. No one's going to do it for you.
And yet there are some times when you just have to allow the road to reveal itself and walk it. And it's a. Yeah, it's a real balancing act to be able to do that.
Wow, Janine, this is great. I.
We could go on for so long. I may have to have you back on sometime. Unless desk do part two.
[01:04:43] Speaker C: I would love that.
[01:04:44] Speaker B: I.
I have two questions that I like to ask all my guests to wrap a show.
And the first one, I just love the stories that I hear, and I hear some really unique things on this. But who comes to mind for you as a leader in your life? Someone you know, don't know, past, present, who you would say has had profound influence or impact on your view of leadership and how you lead and why?
Why that person?
[01:05:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Right now, what I would say is Donella Meadows. She's a systems thinker and leader and somebody that I've just studied with.
Studied her work. She's already passed, but studied her work. But I think it's the, it's the shift from managing the smaller outcomes and into the value of the paradigm is a piece of it. I think it's also learning more about her efforts to make change. And maybe I'll share some pieces around just having the information of what's needed isn't enough.
So how do you move people?
How do you motivate? How do you draw out their motivation and draw them into the work?
Knowing that knowing what's right or knowing what's needed isn't enough. And so that's moving to me in this moment.
[01:06:20] Speaker B: I love that you just said, how do I draw out their motivation?
We usually talk about leaders and one of their jobs being that they let leaders motivate others and they don't.
Motivation isn't something A leader puts in you. It's something a leader draws out of you. It's already there. It's a matter of finding it, helping you find it.
That I love. That was the. That was the magic for me in that response.
[01:06:51] Speaker C: I mean, I feel like I just did this with a client, right? A client that. Where there was. Teams are struggling. But I'll start the leadership team meeting with a team that hadn't worked together with. Had a lot of friction, like why this work for you? Why?
And really have people tell the stories because they need to be connected not to your why, but to their own.
[01:07:14] Speaker B: That's. Yep. We talk about Dwight Eisenhower's definition of leadership all the time. He said leadership was the art of getting people to do things you want done because they want to do it.
So a little bit humorous, but boy, he understood that, didn't he? Understood the. That principle of motivation, if nothing else.
[01:07:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:34] Speaker B: Last question. You're on the top of a mountain with a mega horn and all the megaphone, I should say. And all the leaders of the world are at the base of the mountain to hear what you have to say about leadership. And you've got 15 seconds thereabout to give the Janine Becker soundbite on the most important things.
The thing, the most important thing all leaders should keep in mind as they lead.
What are you saying?
[01:08:04] Speaker C: You are needed and not enough. And that's perfect.
[01:08:08] Speaker B: That's good. There's that. There's that polarity. You're needed and not enough. And that's perfect.
Wow. That didn't. That took four seconds. That didn't even. Yet. You left yourself nine night.
Eleven seconds, Janine. This was rich. Thank you. Thank you for the work you're doing.
I want to point people again to the website if you are interested in reaching out to Janine, seeing how she can help you, your organization, your foundation, your community, do this kind of systems work.
It's onpurpostogether.com.
[01:08:45] Speaker C: please schedule a call on purpose together.com backslash.
I'd love if this resonated with you. I would love to connect.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: Perfect.
That's it.
Love it. Janine. Thanks again. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We went a little bit longer on this episode because I didn't want to stop. So thanks for being generous with the time and the content, Janine.
Folks, we'll see you here next time for episode 157. Lead on, Sam.
