How to Avoid Getting Ahead of Your Network (and Yourself)

In the picture above, you'll see my dog, Bernadette, engaged in one of her cutest and most curious behaviors. Like any wonderful dog, Bernadette wants to be wherever I am.

Unfortunately, she also wants to lead the way. So, when she senses I am going somewhere she runs ahead of me and continually looks back at me to see if she is leading me to the place that she is going to.

Of course, this seems like a no-win situation to me. Our travels from room to room often involve her bumping into walls, us ending up in different places, tripping over each other, or me eventually picking her up and carrying her where I’m going (her least happy option).

Often when we engage in this little dance, I am reminded of the adage that warns leaders not to get ahead of their boards, teams, donors, or communities.

Ultimately, Bernadette is trying to lead the way while constantly checking to see if I’m following her, hoping she’s guessed the right direction. Or she really thinks she wants to go where I do but can’t help herself from needing to be in front of me. 

Many leaders (even the most seasoned) find themselves in this position regularly, dazed and confused about why this cycle repeats itself. 

We are so certain of where we want to go (everyone is relying on us for our vision, after all). Then we suddenly get cues that we are somehow out of alignment with one audience or another, vision be damned. 

• Staff are startled by an idea you thought you had been socializing for months.

• Board members worry that your proposed move could jeopardize the mission and everything they value about your institution. 

• Donors wear confused expressions and want to know how you came to such a decision. 

• Community members can’t picture how all of this will make their lives noticeably more manageable. 

We trip over one another, get frustrated, and start the sad journey back to square one.

Of course, there are many ways in which this is no small task. 

• No two of our audiences need the same message from us despite the fact that the vision should be somehow understood by all. 

• Our various stakeholders just don't move at the same speed. Your staff is out ahead of you; your board is in your rear view mirror; the communities that you serve and donors are scattered haphazardly across your field of vision.

  
  

You somehow need to bring everybody along to a point of readiness to adopt your latest idea without getting ahead of any one group. They never fall into line totally, but they can be more closely aligned (even if that line is not a straight one).

To minimize the frequency of this happening, a little reflection can go a long way (when can’t it?).

I often suggest to clients an exercise that I used at moments when I felt like I was a better version of myself as a leader in situations like this one. Of course, it was my most pressured or confused moments that led me to begin the exercise, always swearing that I would reflect like this more regularly. Maybe you’ll do better than I did. 

Whether on a sheet of paper, an excel spreadsheet, or your Google doc, create a grid. 

Above the grid, write out what you are hoping to accomplish – your vision on this particular initiative or organizational issue. If you can’t distill your vision into one sentence, pause until you can. You may have just identified the root of the misalignment.

On the left side of the grid, list each group you need to bring along: board members, staff, volunteers, donors, clients, community partners, nonprofit partners, government agencies, regulatory agencies, and anyone else you can think of. Feel free to delete anyone not affected by this change. 

Next to each group, there are four columns:

• Column #1: Audience Assessment. Your quick assessment of how this group feels about the change today

• Column #2: Communication Preference. How you think they most want to be communicated with

• Column #3: Ideal engagement. What change are you aiming for in this group of stakeholders?

• Column #4: Practical Next Steps. Ideas for communicating your intent and gathering input to advance this change.

My Vision

I like doing this in spreadsheets because I can then sort the rows from the group that is most affected by this decision (at the top) to the least affected by this decision (at the bottom).  This approach helps you:

• See how far apart in perspective my various audiences are. 

• Decide how you should apportion your time and energy in preparing everyone for the change you are initiating.  Who needs more time and attention? Has any group been neglected before now?  

• Come away with a sense of how much time this change might take overall.  Is your three-month goal really a six-month goal?

Other Tips

• The information you need to assess alignment will come from others. You are likely your best version of you when you ask a question and then keep your upper and lower lips together for at least 80% of the conversation.

• Explaining your idea over and over again does not bring an audience along.  If they don’t get it the first time, they will not get it the second, third, and fourth times you repeat yourself.  The task is to understand where there is agreement and how they need to digest your message. 

In Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Jim Collins masterfully describes the difference between executive leadership (essentially having enough concentrated power to simply make the right decisions) and legislative leadership (the type that nonprofit leadership must employ). 

You see, nonprofit leaders have no structural power and can’t make the most important decisions alone. We rely on persuasion, growing political currency, and identifying shared interests.

Inclusive leadership is slower than just deciding, but on your most important issues, the buy-in you create will take you further and faster in the long run. 

If you’d like to explore how to bring your vision to life for all your audiences, let’s connect. You can email me at gary@garybagley.com, message me on LinkedIn, or schedule a conversation.