The Networked Non-Profit

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine

This quick read centers on how non-profits use social media to drive positive change. I found one distinction in particular very helpful. The authors describe three types of organizations.

1. The Fortress: fortress organizations don’t let people in or secrets out. They are highly self-protective and generally risk-adverse. They are not very open to innovation. They tend to move very slowly and safely when it comes to change.
2. The Transactional: transactional organizations provide services to specific audiences for a fee. This would include airlines and philanthropies. When it comes to non-profits, transactionals usually view the public as outsiders who have one purpose – to write checks.
3. The Transparents: transparent organizations are clear about what they do and have a trusting relationship with those they serve. They tend to put a lot of information about the way they work in the public domain and what they stand for is out in the open. They communicate all results, good and bad. They want feedback.

So what kind of organization do you run? What kind of organization do you work for?

Drive

Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink’s Drive is all about what motivates us and how to get beyond carrot and stick motivation to intrinsic motivation. Pink traces the progression of motivation. Motivation 1.0 is the way that primitive beings lived, acting on instinct and motivated by simple survival. Motivation 2.0 is Pink’s next level and one we achieve through reward and punishment. We get others to do things through bribery or threats. Pink identifies fatal flaws with this method, not least is that it makes us short-term thinkers, stubs our creativity and makes us take ethical short-cuts because it’s all about finishing first or best. Pink believes that we are entering the era of Motivation 3.0. We do things because we value them, and our competency and enjoyment of the task is sufficient enough. This is hard stuff in an age of gold stickers, gift certificates and mega-Wall Street bonuses. It’s hard to fathom how we can get people out of a reward mentality and into doing good for its own sake. Jewish tradition has always promoted intrinsic rewards and Ethics of the Fathers warns against doing good for a reward. Yet even our own tradition acknowledges that “mitokh shelo lishmah ba lishmah;” we can move from doing something for external reasons to doing it for its own sake. How does this happen? Through ongoing and repeated good behaviors which will eventually change our feelings and attitudes.

Hillel: If Not Now, When?

Joseph Telushkin

This fall, watch out for a new publication from Nextbook, who bring the world short, interesting reads on a wealth of Jewish issues. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, well known for his important works on ethics, creates a wonderful portrait of an ancient Talmud sage, Hillel, whose scholarship, inclusivity and skills at outreach to converts are models for Jewish leadership today. Rabbi Telushkin walks us through special vignettes and  sayings of this master educator and offers us a glimpse of how we can negotiate a world of tensions more peacefully and spiritually. I particularly loved Part IV, “Lessons from the First Century for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond” where some of Hillel’s most famous sayings are gathered and mined for their pearls of wisdom. Rabbi Telushkin makes a strong, well-articulated case for how we can handle conversions today with greater thoughtfulness and sensitivity and why we need to stop turning people away, especially those who knock on our doors in anticipation. Two thousand years after his death, Hillel still has so much to say to us.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

Chip Heath and Dan Heath

What a terrific read to stimulate us to think about change in very practical and important ways. Usually I say, ‘I read it so you don’t have to,’ but I think you have to read this if you’re interested in changing anything: your organization, your diet or your job. Here are a few obvious but key nuggets that I’ve distilled into 5 points:

1. To change someone’s behavior, you’ve got to change that person’s situation. It’s less about mindset than about shaping the conditions for success.
   
   
2. Self-control is an exhaustible resource. It’s hard, so hard to be disciplined to change that we often feel tired of working so hard. That’s why we have to make it easier to change by adjusting our behavior in small ways and giving ourselves small victories. Change isn’t about big vision as much as it’s about the supporting details.
   
   
3. Make people feel closer to the finish line than they think they are by shrinking the change so that it doesn’t look overwhelming.
   
   
4. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. This is one of the book’s most important ideas. We think people don’t want to change, but so often they have no idea what you want them to do that’s different. They lack clarity, not will.
   
   
5. Instead of concentrating on people who don’t get it, focus on the bright-spots, the people and the ideas that are resonating and working.