Here it is, Acumen Fund in 90 seconds.
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Blog, tweet, digg, stumbleupon, call a co-worker over to your computer, send a carrier pigeon…do whatever works for you, but be a megaphone.
Easy sharing options here.
And thank you for all that you do.
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The NFL has it right. Commentators for pro football games are Hall of Fame players who have earned their stripes on the front lines, playing the game. Where else can you find people who have won championships talking about championships? This is why when Hall of Fame quarterback and Fox commentator Terry Bradshaw says that Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Farve is playing as well as anyone in the league – or when he says that it might be time to bench Carolina Panthers Quarterback Jake Delhomme – it means something. Terry’s been there. He’s done that.
These are the kinds of critics you dream of, those with front-line experience (and the war wounds to prove it). The provide context, give meaning, ask tough questions, and help shape the conversation.
But most of the time, good critics are hard to come by. Truth is, there aren’t many professions with an average retirement age of 35, so critics normally aren’t former stars who left on a high note. Instead, they are often professional commentators, in which case they inevitably walk a fine line between making sense of and asking tough questions about “the show” (the players, the artists, the politicians, the CEOs), and elevating their own stature for their own sake.
It’s hard to predict who will make a great critic, but a good rule of thumb is this: they always recognize that building, creating, dreaming, executing, and falling and getting up again are all exponentially harder than sitting on the sidelines, prognosticating.
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I gave a speech the other day that was fine. I said what I wanted to say, made the points that I wanted to make.
But fine, I fear, is forgotten. Fine isn’t remembered when a person walks out of the room. Fine is checking the box.
I think I went wrong in the preparation: spending so much time focusing on what I wanted to say, while forgetting to think about what I wanted to happen: what I wanted the audience members to do, to feel, to remember, to repeat to the next person. And not just 5 minutes later, but the next day or the next week.
People don’t remember lists and plans. They remember the narrative, especially a narrative in which they are the central actor, and it’s clear what action they are meant to take. They also remember what they can feel: a personal connection, humor, a spark, even an image.
“What am I going to say?” or “What points am I trying to get across?” seem like the right questions to ask when drafting a speech.
But “What do I want someone to remember?” and “What do I want someone to do?” are much more important.
Next time…
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Today, the application went live for the class of 2011 Acumen Fund Fellows. If you know exceptional individuals from around the world who should be part of the 2010-2011 class, please encourage them to apply.
Acumen Fund Fellows are young people (typically 25-40 years old, but anything goes) who want to get their hands dirty working alongside some of the most dedicated, visionary entrepreneurs who are fighting poverty in India, Pakistan and East Africa. In the first year of the program, more than 600 people from 59 people applied.
When I sit with these Fellows – past, present, future – I’m consistently humbled by their experiences, humility, passion, and practical skills in making change. These are people who could be doing anything with their lives, and who choose to do this. Jawad Aslam is one of the alumni of the Fellows Program, and he has now dedicated his life to building low-income housing in Pakistan. Here’s his story. And the class of 2009-2010 Fellows just arrived in New York to start their one-year Fellowship.
Applications for the class of 2011 will be accepted online until 11:59pm EST on Thursday, November 5, 2009. Detailed information about the program and application process can be found on the Acumen Fund website.
If you want to apply, or know someone who should apply, send them this link.
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Whose side are you on? When you think about your colleagues, your supervisors, the people who work for you, whom do you want to see succeed?
“I want everyone to succeed.”
OK good.
But is that “everyone, as long as I succeed the most” or “everyone?” Because those are two very different answers.
So take the everyone test, by asking yourself: how would I act if I cared just as much about our organization’s success as I do now…but you suddenly disappeared, couldn’t get any credit at all, had no personal stake in an outcome, and really, truly, only wanted everyone around you to succeed?
If your answer to all of these question is “none,” then I applaud you.
I for one know that I have room for growth here, that I’m always working to find the balance between a ruthless aspiration for the best outcomes with a deep-seated belief that it takes a diverse set of talents to get there.
Unless you’re a writer, a tennis player or a virtuoso musician, one of the most important skills is to raise others up, to help them be their best selves. Having those around you shine brightly is often a better marker of success than what you, personally, are able to achieve.
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Last week I heard a story on NPR about CPR protocols in life-threatening situations. The story starts with Scott Harden, who, just before bedtime, heard his 33 year-old wife gasping for air.
“She was not the right color,” Scott said, and he started giving CPR the way he had been taught 15 years ago: 15 quick chest compressions, then two breaths, then more compressions. But he said he “couldn’t get the breaths in,” and, guided by the 911 dispatcher, he stuck with the compressions, doing 100 per minute until the paramedics arrived.
Pete Walka was one of the first paramedics on the scene. According to Pete, Scott saved his wife’s life. “She’s alive because he did really good compressions until we got there,” said Pete.
A 911 dispatcher in any other state might have given Scott different advice. Arizona, under the leadership of cardiologist Dr. Gordon Ewy of the University of Arizona, is promoting a compression-only CPR technique, based on Dr. Ewy’s assertion, and research, that it saves more lives.
Dr. Ewy argues that compression-only works better because it keeps already-oxygenated blood pumping. Stopping compressions to give breaths means, according to Dr. Ewy, that blood stops flowing, leading to worse outcomes. And the highly-respected medical journal The Lancet conducted a study in which it tracked 4,000 victims of cardiac arrest in Japan: it found that those who received compression-only CPR survived nearly twice as often as those who received compressions plus mouth-to-mouth.
But change is hard to come by. According to NPR, the American Heart Association has “updated its guidelines to say that compression-only CPR is appropriate for those not trained in the standard method.” Basically, the AHA is saying, “if you don’t know how to do it the right way, just do the compressions.” According to Dr. Ewy, these recommendations don’t go far enough, and he’s pushing to have Arizona be at the forefront of a national change in CPR protocols.
On it’s own this is a fascinating story. For a lifetime we’ve heard that there’s one way to give CPR, so the idea that there’s another, better way out there – lurking behind the unquestioned conventional wisdom – is itself intriguing. What struck me even more was the argument by Dr. Michael Sayre of the American Heart Association, who helped write the new AHA guidelines. He said:
“Honestly, I think the research that we have to date shows that the outcomes for patients seems to be very similar regardless of the kind of CPR they get.”
Put another way: if the new way is just as good as the way you’re doing things, and if some data suggests it might be better, that’s not good enough. The bar is HIGHER when you want to make change.
We hear this argument every day – even though it’s often more subtle. It’s the “that’s not the way we do things” refrain.
The real reason that “just as good” isn’t good enough is because the people who created the original “just as good” solution have influence and power and something to lose if something better comes along.
So if you’re in the business of making change and stirring things up, you have to keep on hitting a higher bar. And don’t forget that for many people, “that’s not how we’ve done it before” is argument enough not to change.
The burden of proof is highest for the innovators.
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I got a call today from a headhunter looking to get hired to conduct searches. It’s the second time he’s called me since March.
First, kudos to him for being on top of things. He has a list of prospects, tracks things assiduously, and spends his time making cold calls to build leads. He’s sticking to it, and that’s a hard and often thankless job. Determination and execution go a long way.
The one catch for me was that the pitch was terrible. It felt like he was working his way through a list. Here’s roughly how it went:
“Hi, I’m John. We talked in March and I wanted to see if you need any help with any executive searches. I’m calling to follow up.”
“Uh, thanks John, we don’t right now.”
“Do you think you might have needs later in the year, when the economy improves…”
“Probably not…”
Etcetera
Why did John make me feel like #38 on today’s list? Because his pitch was, “Do you need anyone to conduct searches for your firm?” This is very different from, “Do you want ME to conduct searches for your firm.” For a “me” pitch, I’d have to know something about John, his firm, their skills, why they’d be a fit…
Instead, it was a volume play: I’ll call lots of people, I’ll have the same pitch for everyone, and if I make enough calls I’m bound to find someone who needs someone for something – and by calling, I’ll become that someone for someone. If you do the math right (maybe he has), this can work great, for example:
30 calls/hour = 200 calls/day (some calls probably last more than 2 minutes)
1% of calls lead to a next conversation
~10 next conversations generated per week
Etc.
Fair enough, but I was one of the 99% of folks that said “no” today, and by the time I’d hung up I still didn’t even know John’s last name.
Right before he lost me for good, John said:
“Before you go, can I ask you one last question?”
“Sure,” I said.
(DRUMROLL……….)
“Do you have any temporary hiring needs?”
Aw shucks, wrong question. He’s still working his way through the script.
How about this instead: “My last question is: how did my sales pitch work for you today? It sounds like you don’t have any hiring needs but you’re also in an awful hurry to get off the phone. Is there anything I could have done differently?”
(applause ensues)
John would have kept me for another minute, and I’d have shared some thoughts. He’d have learned something – if not from me from the next person who answers this question.
I’m sure half of his ‘no’s’ would tell him something if he bothered to ask what they really think. And if John spent just one day taking his ‘no’s’ and turning them into conversations, he’s taking the 99% of calls that were worthless (200+ of them) and making them worth something – to him and the person he’s calling.
Bonus: by asking that question, he’s started a different conversation, and might actually turn a no into a ‘someday,’ someday.
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Talk about a group that’s rolling up its sleeves and making things happen.
The Young Professionals for Acumen Fund are holding a book reading of The Blue Sweater with Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz on May 13th at 6:30pm at The Bubble Lounge at 228 West Broadway in New York.
“No RSVP is required but space is limited. Please arrive early.” And a percentage of proceeds from the bar benefit Acumen Fund.
Should be fun. Hope we’ll see you there.
Spread the word.
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Continuing a conversation from last week, I again have to acknowledge Seth Godin for understanding as well as anyone how REAL buying decisions (philanthropic, b2b software sales, you name it) are made. You should read the full post, “The rational marketer (and the irrational customer).” Here’s the punchline (Seth is talking about when you, the marketer, know your product is worth buying but your customer doesn’t):
You know that your car is more aerodynamic. You know that your insulation is more effective. You know that your insurance has a higher ROI.
…The problem is that your prospect doesn’t care about any of those things. He cares about his boss or the story you’re telling or the risk or the hassle of making a change. He cares about who you know and what other people will think when he tells them what he’s done after he buys from you.
The opportunity, then, is not to insist that your customers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are. Give them what they need. Help them satisfy their needs at the same time they get the measurable, rational results your product can give them in the long run.
Let’s say that last bit again: “Help them satisfy their needs at the same time they get the measurable, rational results your product can give them in the long run.”
So if I occasionally get frustrated with the dialogue around creating more efficient philanthropic marketplaces, it’s because I don’t always see real, honest incorporation of how philanthropists’ really make decisions. So, yes, we need to move the dialogue forward (in terms of making giving more efficient, helping the most effective nonprofits rise to the top, etc.), but doing this while overlooking / downplaying the donors’ reality is inevitably going to come up short.
This is why I loved Renata Rafferty’s description of “dinosaur philanthropy” on the Tactical Philanthropy blog. We need to start where the bulk of the giving is – and the bulk of the givers are – if the conversations about measurement are going to have a signficant impact on the flow of philanthropic capital.
The more people I talk to who have recently lost their jobs, the more I see how challenging it will be to find new, meaningful work in the current economy. The good news is that this won’t last forever, and if you’ve always thought that you might make some sort of shift – whether into the non-profit sector or otherwise – this economic mess might just be enough to jump-start you move in another direction.
Now’s the time to lay the groundwork for that next move, even if it is three, six, or more months out. If you can, volunteer, start that pet project you’d always meant to do, roll up your sleeves, meet people, make yourself stand out from all the other people who were swept up in this economic tsunami.
On the flip side, if you still have your job, don’t forget that the bar is rising. Those hundreds of thousands of Wall Street types who are out of work? (who I blogged about here) They are hungry and skilled and aggressive and networked. Now is a great time to raise your own game and be even more indispensable.
(OK, in truth, you should always be indispensable, and especially if you are in a mission-driven organization, why would you be there in the first place if you’re not passionate about what you do?)
But now’s the time to dig deeper, to over-promise and then over-deliver. Now’s the time to make your co-workers’ lives easier, to roll up your sleeves, to burn the midnight oil. Now’s the time to lead.
Laying low and hoping you’re not noticed is a horrible life strategy. But right now, in particular, it might also be the best way to lose your job.
