Month: February 2011

Rebooting Valentine’s Day

~ Sasha ~ 83 Comments

I want all my readers to hear first.  This Monday, Valentine’s Day, is going to be rebooted as Generosity Day: one day of sharing love with everyone, of being generous to everyone, to see how it feels and to practice saying “Yes.”  Let’s make the day about love, action and human connection – because we can do better than smarmy greeting cards, overpriced roses, and stressed-out couples trying to create romantic meals on the fly.

I’ll share more on Monday morning (Valentine’s Day), but wanted to let my readers know today that I’m reaching out to a bunch of great bloggers who I respect to spread the word.  Would love your help in doing the same.

On the day of, we’ll be using the hashtag #generosityday to share what people are doing.  The goal is to spend Valentine’s Day being more generous, giving more money, sharing of yourself, being of service.  All acts of generosity, small and big alike, count.  But you have to say YES to everything that’s asked of you, all day long! It’s about creating more generosity in the world, and becoming a more open person along the way.

BACKGROUND: Longtime readers will remember my Generosity Experiment (here’s the blog post or, if you prefer, here’s the video).  My experiment lasted a month, and I found it transformative.  I bet you’ll love doing this for a day.

Examples of great things to do on #generosityday:

  • Give money to….a street musician, a homeless person, your favorite charity
  • Take old clothes from your closet and give them to goodwill
  • Leave a $5 tip for a $2 coffee
  • Introduce yourself to someone you see every day but have never said hello to
  • Bring in lunch for your co-workers
  • Give someone a compliment

If you like this idea, please:

  1. Between now and Monday, tell people (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that you’re committing to a day of generosity this Valentine’s Day.  Committing in advance will help you follow through. (Sample Facebook/Twitter status update that you can post BEFORE MONDAY:  “I’m in!  Let’s reboot Valentine’s Day as #generosityday on Monday http://bit.ly/fJASGV”)
  2. Add to the list (above) of suggested generous actions by commenting on this post or contacting me directly.
  3. Share the idea with other bloggers and friends by emailing them the link to this page (http://bit.ly/fJASGV)

This could be big – but I’ll need your help to make it happen!

Will innovative philanthropy always be a niche?

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

In preparation for the Feast Debate that I’m moderating next week, I was having a conversation today about trends in the philanthropic space.  Someone made the offhanded remark, “Well, there’s clearly a trend of philanthropic dollars being harder to come by and philanthropists being more interested in new models and in financial sustainability.”

Are we talking “trend” or “Trend” with a capital “T”?

Here’s how I think about this question, in terms of total dollars and how they are deployed: without a doubt the “trendsetters” in philanthropy (especially individual philanthropy) are the Buffett/Gates Billionaires who have pledged to give away at least half of their wealth and who are, by and large, younger, more active, and more wealthy than the previous generation of mega-donors.  It’s also clear that the talk in professional philanthropy circles continues to be around results, new approaches, more transparency and accountability.

But how people talk in philanthropy circles and forums and conferences and how actual real live philanthropists behave is not the same thing.  And part of me wonders – and fears – that the amount of talk is getting ahead of the amount of change, and at a certain point we have to ask ourselves what we think the future will look like and what we WANT it to look like.

Graphically, if there’s a leading edge of innovative philanthropy today (which there is…and let’s put aside the question, for now, of whether more innovative is more effective), do we expect and hope that 10 years from now there will be a slightly larger, more established group of innovative philanthropists (v1 in the chart below), or do we think we’re engaged in shifting the whole curve?

What kind of future do we want to create – one with a bigger niche of progressive philanthropists or, instead, do we want to see a shift in the center of gravity?  Because the actions we’d take, the measures of success, the audiences we’d address would be very different depending on which future we hope to see.

My hat’s in the ring for the wholesale shift, but if we’re going to get there we have to spend a lot more time working directly with philanthropists themselves – and not only the most active and engaged ones, but all across the spectrum.

Act on your gut

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

By now we know about the power of first impressions (thanks to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, among others).  We form impressions very quickly (in seconds) and often those impressions have strong predictive power.

But the expression “go with your gut” sells this idea short – it implies your gut instead of your analytical mind…like your innards have some perceptive power that’s not possessed between your ears.

It’s not about choose which part of your body to listen to, it’s about acting on what you know is true, but that you’re afraid to do.  For instance:

“I’m not crazy about what’s being proposed here, but I’ll let it kick around for a while instead of speaking up.”

“I don’t feel excited about hiring this person, but her qualifications are great, let’s push her on to the next round.”

“It feels like we’re moving too slowly here, but that’s what’s in our strategic plan.”

“The last thing we need is another policy, but I guess it’s the prudent thing to do.”

As Mike Karnjanaprakorn wrote about yesterday, one of the three (only three!) things the Head of Product at a company has to do to be successful is to say “no” to 99% of feature ideas so she can get things done and ship quickly.  I doubt that the people who are best at this know more than everyone else (about which features to say “no” to), but I’m sure they act more on what they’re thinking and are great at sticking to their guns, even when there’s tons of pressure to cave.

You gut and your head know what you need to do; the discipline is in learning to act on that feeling time and again to test what you secretly suspect…which is that that small voice inside your head (or gut) is right.

The power of combinatory skills

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

Last Monday night, if you happened to be one of the 2,000+ people at Carnegie Hall, you were lucky enough to hear a powerful, arresting performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony played, perhaps for the first and last time in history, with images of victims of Pakistan’s floods illuminating the hall.  The concert was a benefit for Acumen Fund, but more than that, it was a powerful statement of the role we all have in rebuilding in the face of tragedy and destruction, and of how different worlds (classical music and Acumen Fund; an Indian conductor putting on a concert for Pakistan; Carnegie Hall and the Punjab) can come together.

George Mathew conducted that beautiful music and made the concert happen.

It’s the “making the concert happen” part that represents the future.  What makes George unique is the combinatory skills he possesses – he’s not just a trained classical musician capable of leading one of the most outstanding collections of musicians to grace the Carnegie Hall stage (though that’s a great start).  George had the vision, the gumption, the persuasive capacity, and the sheer doggedness to make this vision happen.  No one asked George to do it.  No one gave him permission. No one asked if he was qualified.

In the old days, the way forward for a classical musician (or a writer, or someone playing in a band, or starting a nonprofit or even writing cartoons) was: get as good as you possibly could at your craft and hope to win the ticket to the big time, conferred by some arbiter of taste and access.  If you’re a classical musician, you’d win the Tchaikovsky competition.  If you’re a writer, Random House would pick up your book AND decide to promote it.  In cartooning, you’d make the funny pages and be syndicated nationally.

What’s changed?

Two things:

  1. The industries into which you’re selling have transformed radically, so the power of the gatekeepers has plummeted.  Book publishing is gasping for air, the funny pages are disappearing, classical music (I hate to say) was never all that popular to begin with, and nonprofits still typically underperform, undergrow, underdream.
  2. It’s easier than ever for one committed person to pull people together, build a loyal following, to make their voice heard and sell direct.

But though the old way of doing things is on the way out, we manage to persuade ourselves that the folks who have crossed this chasm are individually exceptional – which is another way of saying “I’m not them, I don’t possess their talents, so their lessons don’t apply to me.”

So we pretend that:

  • Scott Harrison, the founder and CEO of charity:water, has such a unique story (party animal turns do-gooder) that we could never learn the lessons he has to teach.
  • No one could ever be as self-promotional as Tim Ferris, or assemble such an outrageous collection of goodies to make his book sell ($4,000,000 in prize giveaways to sell advance copies of the 4-Hour Body), so there’s little to be learned from the fact that The Four Hour Body rocketed its way to the top of the NY Times best-seller list.
  • Classical musicians are supposed to stick to the music, they don’t create magical experiences like the one George Mathew put together last week.
  • Most cartoonists don’t have MBA’s from Harvard Business School, so they’ll never have the unique collection of talents that Tom Fishburne does over at the Marketoonist.
  • And of course no other authors can really build audience like Seth Godin can…never mind what Chris Guillebeau has done over at the Art of Non-Conformity
  • And, for that matter, fundraisers are just fundraisers – they don’t have anything worth saying about emerging sectors and the role of philanthropy and markets in solving intractable problems….but of course we do.

How many more examples do we need before we understand that this is what the future looks like, and that  it’s here NOW?   How long until we recognize that the heyday of getting picked out of the pile and being catapulted to the cover of Time magazine isn’t coming back – and by the way the chances of that happening were so infinitesimally small that it was a bad deal anyway.  How long until we see that the people defending the old way of doing things are probably those who benefited from it the most, and that while we’re listening to that siren song, someone is out there doing the hard work of building audience, connecting people, sharing their art, and not shying away from the whole craft that the world is demanding of them.

(And, by the way, as Jeff reminded me, you don’t have to DO this all by yourself – teams work too, often better than a solo rockstar.)

Pretending now hasn’t arrived is just burying your head in the sand.  Saying the only thing you know how to do is to work on your craft (narrowly defined), and then bemoaning that you haven’t been discovered…that’s just hiding.

There’s nothing keeping you from embracing today today, from jumping in now, because so many people are still going to want to hide, and if you start building now, I promise you’ll get there.

Initiate

~ Sasha ~ 9 Comments

My first real job was as a management consultant, and after that I worked at a number of big companies, and from both I inherited a clear, incorrect sense of how my professional life should evolve.  It looked something like this:

Meaning:

  • As you’re starting out, your job is to DO: folks give you assignments, and it’s your job to execute (“build this model;” “complete these benchmarking interviews”; “write this proposal”).
  • Then eventually you become a “manager”: there are projects for you to run, and people for you to supervise, and you have to figure out how to do that well
  • And finally you are anointed a “leader” (aka Partner, C-level exec, etc.) – you’re in charge and you decide things

What always felt mysterious was how one jumps from one step to the next.  You could do a good job on stuff and eventually you’d be recognized and promoted (hopefully), but I knew that the cashflow models I was building as an entry-level consultant weren’t teaching me to sell projects, so how would I ever leap that chasm?  Plus, it’s a terrible waiting game: at its best, you set a bunch of ambitious goals, work to exceed those goals, and hope someone notices you and gives you that big promotion and a step up the ladder.  You’re out there checking off boxes, but you’re also waiting for someone to decide it’s OK for you to step forward and do the next thing.

This model is dead, ill-informed, outdated.   The only real purpose it served was to allow the people in charge to feel in charge, and to make sure that great ideas didn’t come from most of the organization.

Here’s a different chart so simple that it forces you to look it (and yourself) straight in the eye:

Every day, no matter where you sit in the organization and what you’ve been asked to do, you’re in a position to initiate things.  Ideas, seminars, journals, newsletters, blogs, new software projects, better sales pitches, partnerships that will change the game

When you initiate you come up with the idea and get it rolling.  You don’t need permission, because if you create something great and someone loves it so much that they want to grab it from you, that’s fine – you’ve created something of value, and you can go on to the next thing.

Instead of worrying about getting credit and your job title, worry about leverage.

Stop waiting around.  Stop asking for permission.  Start things and ask to be stopped.   Find people who will help, who can do some of the work, who can take some or all of the credit.  And then do it again.

Critics’ critiques and cheerleaders’ cheers

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

There was a guy I went to school with who earned the (affectionate) nickname “Yes, but…”

In any discussion, whether of microeconomic models or where to go for lunch, he started most sentneces with a nod to the contradiction, the course correction, the “on the other hand” point of view he was about to espouse.

In fact most humanities academia is built on the “Yes, but” philosophy – a peer writes a paper, the academic finds a small flaw or oversight and writes a follow-up article exposing that small miss…and in so doing gets her next piece of work published (which is the main milestone in academia).

No surprise, then, that the “yes, but” mindset passes for “critical thinking” which, in turn, is raised to the highest pedistal in our instituitons of higher learning.  “Yes, but…” comments score points with teachers (“great analysis, kid!”) and are the safest form of one-upmanship.

I used to be a terrible offender.  From a good and honest place, and a heartfelt desire to come up with the best solutions, I was most comfortable and most in the habit of finding the logical flaws and asking the tough questions.

I have a colleague who does the opposite, and from whom I’ve learned a lot.  She has an uncanny ability to find what is best, what is most inspiring, what is unique about what someone has said or done, and she shines a light on it with a smile and with no apologies.

When you’re blazing a new path, you’re constantly dogged by critics’ critiques of all the reasons that this won’t work, why it’s been done before and it crashed and burned, why it would be better if you just did it the way everyone else does.  And, of course, sometimes they’ll be right, but usually not.  They’re doing the easy thing: playing the clever, detached critic.

Much harder, and less celebrated, is to be a cheerleader who applauds victories, however small; who props people up when fatigue sets in, when the road seems to long, or when they have, just for a second, lost the will to go even one step further.   In work as in life, when times are really tough, those voices of support are priceless, especially from cheerleaders who help you break through barriers, who lean in with you, who are fully invested in YOUR success – rather than taking pot shots from the sidelines.

Scarcity, urgency, and a sense of accomplishment

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

Here’s how a great bebopper on the subway was selling his CDs.

“We started today with 100 CDs and we’ve sold 48… we’ve got 52 to go.  They’re only $5 each.  If you stand up and buy one you’ll create a cascade of other buyers!”

Nice.

Let’s parse that pitch:

–          “We started today with 100 CDs and we’ve sold 48:” these things are good and they’re selling fast.  Other people have decided that they’re good already.  You’re joining that crowd when you buy one.

–          “, and we have 52 to go….” we’re getting towards the finish line, and you can help us….

–          “If you stand up and buy one you’ll create a cascade of other buyers!” your actions are bigger than just you.  A lot more is going on here than you giving us $5 and us giving you a CD.

Without a doubt, it’s almost always better to create scarcity, a sense of urgency (a deadline) and a feeling of accomplishment on the part of your buyer (donor).

And no, it doesn’t always have to be “act fast time’s running out” (though that’s usually a good thing…but then again it’s not true each and every time).  But there’s a lot more you can do than describe just the thing that you’re selling and how much you’re selling it for.

Help people understand that you have a limited number of seats (scarcity), where the finish line is how they’re helping you get there (urgency), and how their actions can and will influence others for great impact (sense of accomplishment).  And then take the concrete steps that allow you to keep each of these promises that you’re making.