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Dear Friends,
What does it mean to have "a culture of learning" within an organization? This is an often-sought but frequently elusive goal for many. Learning what? Is all learning important, or just specific kinds of learning? Is learning a priority in and of itself equal to the mission, or it is one enabler among many - a means to an end? Should everyone in the organization have equal time and resources devoted to their learning, or are there certain key staff that merit more focus? And what are we expected to do with all that learning? Is there a Return on Investment to the organization, to the clients, and/or to the individual? At what point are we doing so much learning that we actually stop doing? Is our responsibility to teach as well, to share the learning? Or just soak it all in and let the benefits emerge where they may? Can learning be measured? Should we try?
At Olive Grove one of our core values is "A Thirst for Learning." As consultants if we don't keep learning, we move backwards and stop giving real and meaningful assistance to clients. Every day we learn something from our clients, and we love to learn through our multiple collaborations with leadership development programs, students and professors, other service firms, funders, and consulting colleagues. We devote significant time and resources to make sure that not only are our employees learning, but that we are helping all of those other folks to learn from each other as well. This fall we look forward to announcing a major, multi-faceted collaboration with an institution of learning - a leading university on the East Coast. And perhaps even another collaboration with a national association that focuses on deep learning in o ne particular topic. We believe learning is critical to the firm, to our clients, to the development of our staff and consultants, to our identity as a firm, and to changing the world. But, to tell the truth (please don't let this get out)...we haven't really figured this out yet. We have some ideas, and some goals (both individual and collective). We bring up this value pretty much every day in discussions, problem-solving, and decision-making, as in "How should we think about this in the context of valuing a thirst for learning?" It is frequently helpful. And sometimes it doesn't feel helpful at all - it feels like a time-sucking and pointless distraction when our backs are against the wall. But we keep trying, and practicing, and adjusting, and saying it out loud, and putting resources toward it. And maybe, just maybe, we are sneaking up on that elusive "culture of learning." |
Leading towards Learning 
Bill Say and Mona Jones-Romansic
From Mona: After spending a weekend with colleagues at the Alliance for Nonprofit Management Conference I was heartened to see a recognition that the nonprofit sector itself is at an inflection point, that many of the problems we as consultants focus on in isolation are inter-related, and that new forms of organizational management and leadership are necessary to thrive in this new environment. One concept that is just beginning to get traction in the nonprofit sector and has enormous potential to reshape our thinking about leadership is the "learning organization."
Learning organizations are defined by leading thinkers on organizational development as having distinct leadership, organizational culture, organizational processes and structures, effective knowledge management systems, and physical spaces that are conducive to communication and learning. Our research shows that while distinctive organizational culture, processes and structures underpin successful learning organizations, leadership is the keystone sustaining the model.
Building a successful learning organization requires embracing a new paradigm for leadership. One central leadership skill in a learning organization is awareness. Too often the leader operates within an organizational and relational "awareness bubble," a membrane that removes the leader from key aspects of the organizational culture and process, and from feedback about his or her own behavior. The new leader utilizes awareness and awareness building methods to create an environment where information can flow and feedback, arguably the primary evidence of learning, can occur. Individuals and human systems need feedback for learning to occur. The ability to receive feedback, individually and collectively, relies to some degree on emotional maturity and the willingness to at times "hear" difficult and identity-altering information.
The most significant aspect of organizational culture contributing to successful learning is a culture of safety. Cultures of safety encourage innovation and experimentation, view mistakes and failures as learning opportunities, evaluate process as well as outcome, value and utilize communication skills that expose reasoning and conclusions to inquiry, and lastly, display mutual respect for all stakeholders. Counter-intuitively, safety is created by risk. When leaders don't risk, reveal, inquire, and model transparency, deeper levels of safety are not attained, feedback is rejected or not offered, and learning stays superficial. Conversely, a level of safety is required for risk to occur. One way a leader can help build a learning organization is by offering structures and processes for taking risks and learning from successes as well as failures, sharing what is learned to wider audiences, cultivating leadership in others to build a leaderful organization, and investing time in processing issues of mutual concern.
Other organizational structures and processes that have been found to be significant for successful learning include feedback loops, incentives, and shared decision-making. A learning organization actively engages in single, double and triple loop learning. Single loop learning can be described as learning aimed at improving existing processes to more effectively reach a pre-determined goal. Double loop learning occurs when individuals or organizations question the underlying assumptions behind their actions and rethink the processes they have in place to achieve their goal. Triple loop learning occurs when individuals or organizations are open to questioning the driving goal behind their work and continuously transform themselves and their abilities to learn. It is also important to understand how people are or are not encouraged to undertake learning. For example, if mistakes resulting from thoughtful risk-taking are punished then an organization may be dis-incentivizing triple loop learning.
While both organizational culture and organizational structures and processes prove to be critical components of the learning organization, leadership is the lynchpin in the learning organization management model. Leaders play a pivotal role in influencing the culture, structure and processes of an organization by initiating processes, policies and procedures, and most vitally, by modeling behaviors that demonstrate learning. The role of a leader in a learning organization is not to mandate change but to model change. More like teachers than generals, these leaders must facilitate collaboration, embrace experimentation and uncertainty and build leaderful organizations. The charge for nonprofit leaders in the twenty first century will not be to do more of the same administration but rather to reinvent leadership for learning.
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Practicing Values: A Learning and Culture Casestudy
Bill Say and Mona Jones-Romansic
Organizational values are the visible artifacts of an organization's culture, they set the tone for how an organization will function internally and how it will interface with external stakeholders. However, stated values are frequently not the values that an organization practices in day-to-day work. This happens in part because values are often developed early in the organization's history and revisited every three to five years during strategic planning but fail to be integrated into everyday work. "So what?", you may ask. How much does integrating values into everyday work really matter? Is it as important as having good board governance or strong organizational leadership? Olive Grove's recent work with a client has shown us that not only is it as important, it can be integral to achieving both good governance and strong leadership.
Late in 2010 Olive Grove began work with a San Francisco-based nonprofit. Our work with this organization was focused on building a clear vision for successful governance, which would be in alignment with the unique values of the organization. As we interviewed board and staff members it became clear that the organization had relied on their long time Executive Director to maintain the culture of the organization. After that person's departure one of the key organizational values had, over time, come to mean many different things to different people. Lack of a shared definition of this overarching value lead to a lack of shared understanding of what it should look like in practice. The impact on the organization was that everyone was working under a different set of assumptions. Leaders were navigating from different maps, which had a paralyzing effect on the ability of the board to provide effective governance for the organization and the ability of the staff leadership to build momentum and support for important initiatives. As we dug deeper we discovered that the dissonance between the stated and demonstrated value had permeated throughout the organization and was, in fact, at the heart of numerous, seemingly unrelated, challenges facing the organization. Up to that point, although everyone felt frustrated, they had not been able to find the right entry point to address the issues.
While changing culture takes long and concerted effort, the first step is to help an organization learn about itself. A shared understanding about where you are as well as a shared commitment to where you want to go as an organization provides a solid foundation, and hopefully a good dose of inspiration, to see you through the long road ahead. To map out our client's current culture we worked with all staff and board members to identify implicit values and support these definitions with descriptions of what the values looked like in action. This was followed by an exercise to help the group craft a vision of their future by fleshing out the explicit values. The second exercise was designed to helped everyone understand what the ideal organizational culture would, and would not, look like in practice.
Once the organization was aware of the dynamic tension between the current culture and the ideal culture, as defined by the full group, they were motivated to make changes. This is where the rubber hits the road. The second phase of our work with the organization involved supporting the leadership to model behavioral changes and modifying the structure of the board and staff to support the desired culture. Our assessment and subsequent work on the culture of the organization provided a holistic approach to addressing a number of challenges. While this approach can sometimes uncover more than initially bargained for, it also builds organizational strength at a deeper level than anticipated.
A great organizational culture has the potential to inspire their staff, volunteers and the community, to attract great talent and to fortify organizations in the face of change. However, many organization fail to appreciate the power of their culture and in doing so miss an opportunity to leverage one of their biggest assets, the creativity and cohesiveness of their people. The bottom line is, culture happens and you can either, close your eyes and hope for the best, or you can actively build the organization you want to be a part of.
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Back to Learning: A Learning Community in an Olive Grove
Ned Schaub
". . . a learning community must give the chance to participants to meet particular needs by expressing personal opinions, asking for help or specific information and share stories of events with particular issue included . . ." -- from "Learning Communities, Communities of Practice: Principles, Technologies, and Examples by Bonk, Wisher, and Nigrelli," 2006.
As kids head back to school and back to learning, Olive Grove is fast at work on rolling out its Learning Community Practice. At Olive Gove, initially this will mean bringing together consultants from across our network to look into particular focus areas that are key to the success of nonprofit missions and the sustainability of nonprofit organizations. We will also be initiating related consulting services for our clients and their communities.
In the past Olive Grove has conducted learning communities around Bringing Organizations to Scale, Governance, Working Internationally, and Leadership Sustainability. In one or more of these areas we put together an initial thought paper, conducted survey work, and produced a webinar session. This work brought together consultant colleagues, and there was great reception for the work, but we realized that we needed greater capacity and to be able to provide a related consulting offering.
Over the summer we have been exploring through surveys and meetings with a number of the Olive Grove network members how we might best bring a strong Learning Community Practice to life, how it would work, who it would serve, what it would offer. While many of those details are still in the works, we've learned a number of things that are helping us to give shape to the plan for the practice.
Some of the core topics that we will likely be pursuing for learning community exploration are governance, leadership, sustainability, revenue diversification, transitions, evaluation, business models for nonprofits, and effective strategy development. Current discussions have us considering the possibility for consulting offerings in each of these areas. Also, on the drawing board is a model for a consulting session that would bring together multiple consultants to provide ideas, brainstorm, and offer planning services in one session, to multiple participating organizations. There are many exciting possibilities.
We'll keep you posted and please feel free to reach out to Ned Schaub, Olive Grove Vice President, who is responsible for the Learning Community practice, with any burning questions, great ideas, or if you'd just like to be in the mix! You can reach Ned at 510-761-6337 or ned@olivegroveconsulting.com.
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New Faces
Elaine Choi joined Olive Grove in September as our Finance Associate. Elaine has worked in accounting and finance for other professional services firms and has already settled into her role at Olive Grove, creating new systems and efficiencies in the finance department. See her full bio on our website.
Kelly Kirkpatrick has been working with Olive Grove on and off since 2007, and joined the staff as our Operations Associate in September. Kelly will be developing and managing robust organizational processes to support the firm's sustainability and growth, and overseeing our quality assurance infrastructure to ensure that we continue to deliver exceptionally high quality services. See her full bio on our website.
Director Mona Jones-Romansic will be spending more time as a consultant and transitioning out of operations this fall, providing organizational learning and culture services for our clients, a practice she is developing with Olive Grove network consultant Bill Say. They are starting a pilot program, and will have more news to share in the fall.
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Current Searches
Olive Grove is currently seeking exceptional candidates for the following positions:
Executive Director, Chamberlin Family Foundation
Director of Development, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
Director of Marketing and Communications, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
President & CEO, Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation
Director of Development, Center for Natural Lands Management
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Special Events
Olive Grove has teamed with Grove Network affiliate Farallone Pacific Insurance Services to bring you a new tool for your Human Resources departments. We will be premiering this tool via live webinar on Tuesday, September 27 at 10am PST. If you are a consultant to nonprofits or a nonprofit leader this is a wonderful opportunity to learn about a resource that can create more efficiencies, ease of mind, and potentially save precious time and money in complying with human resources regulations. To register for the webinar, please contact Denis Squeri at DSqueri@fp-ins.com.
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