The Nonprofit board's duty of foresight with Jeff De Cagna
7/15/2024
““The question that I ask myself every day and that I ask in every session I do with boards, which is what will our successors say about us? Different from the question of legacy, which is very often self centered on what we want others to say about us. What our successors will say about us will not be defined by our words, it will be defined by our actions... Will we leave it better than how we found it [for those who will follow us]?... Particularly the people that we will never know personally... The people who will become part of our communities and organizations into the next decade and that we’ll never have a relationship with. Are we going to be doing something that will leave it better for them?””
In episode 102 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton and Jeff De Cagna discuss the concept of the "duty of foresight," stressing the need for boards to prepare for future challenges. They critique traditional leadership paradigms and promote stewardship as a more inclusive and effective approach.
The conversation covers various topics, including the evolution from VUCA to BANI and the need to challenge orthodox beliefs to create resilient and forward-thinking organizations.
Episode highlights:
Duty of Foresight
[00:07:00] - [00:010:00]
- the concept of the "duty of foresight."
- the importance of boards anticipating future challenges and preparing accordingly.
Evolution from VUCA to BANI
[00:14:00] - [00:17:30]
- the shift from VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) to BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible).
Challenging Orthodox Beliefs
[00:19:00] - [00:24:00]
-The need for nonprofit leaders to question and confront orthodox beliefs.
- examples of outdated beliefs and suggests alternative approaches to foster innovation and resilience.
Leadership vs. Stewardship
[00:30:00] - [00:37:00]
- Critique of traditional leadership models, arguing that they often emphasize winning and greatness in unproductive ways.
- Stewardship as a more collaborative and sustainable approach to governance.
Preparing for Future Challenges
[00:37:00] - [00:23:00]
- the importance of collective responsibility on nonprofit boards and shared vulnerability in addressing complex issues.
Guest Bio:
Jeff De Cagna FRSA FASAE, executive advisor for Foresight First LLC in Reston, Virginia is an association contrarian, foresight practitioner, governing designer, stakeholder/successor advocate, and stewardship catalyst. In August 2019, Jeff became the 32nd recipient of ASAE’s Academy of Leaders Award, the association’s highest individual honor given to consultants or industry partners in recognition of their support of ASAE and the association community.
Important Links and Resources:
Jeff De Cagna
Foresight First LLC
VUCA https://www.mindtools.com/asnydwg/managing-in-a-vuca-world
BANI https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2022/06/22/what-bani-really-means-and-how-it-corrects-your-world-view/
Reasons to be cheerful newsletter: https://reasonstobecheerful.world/
Threatening Thirties series:
https://www.naylor.com/associationadviser/the-threatening-thirties-part-i/
https://www.naylor.com/associationadviser/the-threatening-thirties-part-ii/
https://www.naylor.com/associationadviser/the-threatening-thirties-part-iii/
Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture: https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/characteristics.html
Related Episodes:
Episode 15: The Nonprofit Executive Director-Board Chair relationship
Episode 42: Building shared governance
Episode 55: Helping nonprofit boards move toward greater equity
Episode 61: Impactful nonprofit boards
Episode 97: The business imperative of facing climate change
Episode 99: Elevating nonprofit governance
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Carol: Welcome Jeff. Welcome to Mission Impact.
Jeff: Thanks for having me, Carol. Appreciate it.
Carol: So I'd like to start out each episode by asking each guest, what drew you to the work that you do? What would you describe as your why or what would you say motivates you?
Jeff: Well, I think that, I've been in the association space, association nonprofit space for the last, 30 plus years. And I think it started out, it started out as something I fell into. It became something that I stayed in because after trying to leave and not being successful at leaving to do other things, I decided that.
It was choosing me rather than I, than I was choosing it, that there was a reason I should stay. And, and so, and I think I finally figured out that reason I started out focusing on innovation. But really, I think these last seven years that I have been totally focused on the idea of helping boards set a higher standard of stewardship, governing, and foresight.
It's because I feel very strongly about the importance of the role they need to play. Given the challenges that our organizations face. And so I think what the continuing motivation is around that is the question that I ask myself every day and that I ask in every session I do with boards, which is what will our successors say about us?
And different from the question of legacy, which is very often very self centered on what we want others to say about us. What our successors will say about us will not be defined by our words, it will be defined by our actions. And, that's become quite critical, for us in these first nearly five years of this decade, and will become even more critical as we look toward the second half of the turbulent twenties and beyond.
So, so,, so that is my ongoing sort of daily motivation of what more successors say about us. And will we leave it better than how we found it for those who will follow us, especially, particularly the people that we will never know personally. I'm not just talking about the people who will join our boards or join our organizations in the next couple of years.
I'm talking about the people who will become part of our communities and organizations. going into the next decade and that we'll never have a relationship with. Are we going to be doing something that will leave it better for them? And that is really, what I focus on and something I talk a lot about with boards.
Carol:. Kind of that. maybe not quite seven generations forward looking forward, but in that direction. So one of the things you mentioned and one of the things you've been working on for the last decade or so with nonprofits and associations is that board duty of foresight.
Carol: Can you say a little bit about what that is and, and why you think it's a really essential piece and, and maybe often a missing piece from how boards go about doing their work?
Sure.
Jeff:So the duty of foresight got its start in an article I wrote for ASAE's American Society of Association Executive Associations now, a magazine in 2014 which was, it was part of an article that I wrote about the. Company that most everyone's heard of is Blackberry. And how did that company go from being so super successful and being the dominant technology player of its era to now being basically an afterthought.
It still exists, but no one knows that it exists because it's not, it's not. Where it used to be. It's not, it's no, we don't know, we no longer talk about Crackberry or any of the, the, the cultural significance of that, of that device that was so popular for such a long time.
And I wanted to understand. Why a company that I'd been a customer for a very long time and, using those devices, how could it go from this incredible success to this almost being sold to private equity in 2012, and then it managed to survive that, but, nowhere near where it used to be.
And one of the things that I learned through my research was that the board and management of that company really had failed to anticipate a world in which they would not be the dominant player. And in which their success would not be meteoric, that their success would be questioned, would be challenged by companies like Apple, by companies like Google and others.
And, and that's exactly what happened, and they were not prepared for it, and of course it's not the only thing that went into their, their failure and it, and you have to look at it as a failure, it's, there's really no other way to see it. And so I coined the term, the duty of foresight in that article that the board.
In particular, it had failed at its duty of foresight. And I, I realized in, in writing that, that I, I, I felt it was an important idea and I kept working on it, and kept writing about it for associations now and other publications started talking about it working with clients on it and really trying to build out, the thinking around that and then for, for about eight years or so maybe eight and a half years, the, the definition remained relatively stable that it was really focused on.
Learning as much as possible with the future that boards would commit to that idea of learning as much as possible with the future. But then, after two years of pandemic lockdown and two years of. Two plus years really of, of suffering in many ways across our, country and around the world and so many follow on consequences of the pandemic, I realized that it was time for an update was time for this definition to move with the world that it was trying to assist boards, and they're navigating with it.
And in 2022, I released what I refer to as the next definition. Of the board's duty of foresight, which is really, I, which I wrote in a way that would be consistent with the way that I would write a definition for the duty of care or the duty of loyalty or the duty of obedience, any of the three duties of fiduciary responsibility.
And, and so the language now is that the duty of foresight requires boards to successors futures, ? To really, building on the question that I shared a moment ago, really saying, someone's got to stand up. For the people that are not in the room right now, their voices are not heard in board conversations.
They're not part of the decision making that goes on in our organizations by and large. So who's going to be the group that stands up for them? I think it has to be our boards that are, that are doing that. And so, because not the, the futures they're creating are not the, do not belong to them. These are the futures that belong to, to those who will follow us.
And I think that's a crucial thing for us to be thinking about. As we, as we look at everything that has transpired in these last four plus years, almost four and a half years of this decade and everything that we know is on the horizon for the rest of this decade. And again, going into the 2030. So it's just, I think it's, it's essential for our boards to be not only thinking about the duty of foresight, but what it means for how they change their orientation, their work, their purpose.
As a governing group in our, in our organizations. And this is true in associations or nonprofit organizations. And I think it even goes beyond that. But again, my focus is really on how to help associations and nonprofits and their boards with this conversation. So this is, this has become the central theme of the overall work that I do to help boards set a higher standard of stewardship, governing, and foresight.
It's the core idea around which all the rest of that is built.
Carol: For the past 20 years or so, and maybe it's even, even longer than that, strategists have been talking about a world that's VUCA or volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and some of the materials that you shared with me, I took You introduced me to a new concept and a new acronym, BANI, brittle, anxious, non linear, and incomprehensible. So this shift and, and what does it mean for associations? .
Jeff:So, VUCA got it started in the military probably in the early nineties, so it's, it's, it's probably about 30 or so years and it's spread to other sectors and I even wrote about it for a while and, including some of my work over the course of these last 20 plus years and, VUCA as it, it, it's still true.
Like we still operate in a world of, high levels of volatility, high levels of uncertainty, ambiguity, of course, and complexity, of course, all of that is still present. But it's less useful now as a way of understanding the world than it once was. And I think about what, what is, what is. I think it is powerful about Banny.
And I was late really coming to the idea of Banny cause it's honestly, it's not my favorite acronym. And it's not even, it's not, it's not mine. It was actually developed by a futurist by the name of Jermaine Cascio in 2018 because what he was seeing, which I think others were seeing as well, was that VUCA just wasn't as useful.
And so what he was trying to articulate in, in establishing Banny. Is, what are the things that we are actually seeing in the environment that we need to address, that it's not enough to say that things are volatile and uncertain and so on. We have to really name what the challenges are that we're dealing with.
And I think the words that you mentioned are the right words. We do see, and certainly, like I said, this predates the pandemic, but certainly as a consequence of all the stress placed on our systems, our human systems, our technical systems. During the worst of pandemic lockdown, we certainly have seen very clearly the brittleness in those social and human and other systems,, whether it's the supply chain or whether it's the electrical grid or whether it's the environment or our educational systems, food security systems.
Health care, education, you name it, the human systems upon which we rely in every respect in our personal lives, our professional lives underwent tremendous stress during the pandemic, and we're still recovering from that, even though we're trying to build them back. Building them back and making them resilient is a great challenge.
Because the stress continues even though it's been turned down quite a bit in these last few years. There's still plenty of stress there. There's this tremendous amount of societal anxiety that manifests itself in the deep concerns I think we all have about You know, drug addiction and the opioid crisis in this country and around the world, the concerns about burnout and exhaustion that everyone is feeling, including decision makers and associations and nonprofit organizations boards and others, all of us who are working, it's been an exhausting and difficult time.
And, anxiety around climate and climate futures among, especially among younger people. So, these concerns about anxiety are real. We have so many crises happening right now. It feels like at the same time, putting the input in one place. Develops into an output that we didn't expect in another place, ?
So something like COVID itself is a great example of a nonlinear development where a few infections in Asia turned into a global pandemic before we even were able to wrap our minds around it. And I think we're still. Find that difficult to understand. And then which leads to, the idea of, of, of, technologies now like AI and just the enormity of the crisis around climate.
It's hard for us to again, wrap our minds around. Just how. Complicated. These issues are just how, how even technologies like AI even function, including people themselves, people who work in the space themselves can't always fully explain, how they make their predictions and how it delivers its outputs.
So I think these conditions, again, even though the acronym itself is, is a little. Feels a little difficult to say sometimes. I do think that this is the world in which we're living. I think these are the words that are good for us to be thinking about and say, what are we going to do to address these issues in our organizations?
And I actually think that the duty of foresight I've come to realize this, I think over the last. Couple of years having, after I developed the next definition that the idea of, of Banny and these, and these four, four concepts naturally fit with each other, like if the duty of foresight is successors futures, these are the things we should be working on, on behalf, not only of ourselves, but our successors.
So I think this is. The context in which we're in our challenge is to figure out how to reduce the detrimental consequences of these, of these conditions. And, also how to identify opportunities to move beyond them so that we can strengthen ourselves, our organizations, and our society for the future.
So it's obviously a huge set of challenges. We will not work alone and in associations and nonprofits, but it's something I think where we can be very positive contributors to, to a process of thinking about how to make things better.
Carol: So as part of making things better, embodying or really living into that duty of foresight, one of the things that you talk about is, asserting that, questioning and confronting Orthodox beliefs about how our world works. Organizations work about what our role is in the world. Is something that association and nonprofit leaders really need to confront. And I'm curious, can you just say a couple of like what, what those are and, and then, what you might offer as an alternative.
Jeff:So Orthodox beliefs, and it's something that I've been talking about and writing about and working on, with organizations for more than 15 years now. And so in some ways that it, it, well, I don't know, just chronologically, it predates even the focus on the duty of foresight, but they've become naturally connected in my thinking because.
You know, force, the duty of foresight is all about orienting ourselves toward the future, ? And, and to recognize our responsibility to others. And, and, and it's very hard to do that. And that's much harder to do if we are tethered to a past defined by a belief system that was not really true.
When it first found its way into us, right was first inculcated in us. And if it's not really true today, and if it's not really helpful to us, then why do we continue to have to hold onto it? So these orthodox beliefs, these deep seated assumptions we make about how the world works, whatever that world is, it could be the world with large, the world of organizations, the world of the fields or the causes that we are serving.
You know, whatever that world and, and the overlap among them, of course, too, ? The, the more that we are operating on the belief on the set of assumptions of the past about what those words were like and what, what moved them the harder it's going to be for us to do the learning we need to do, like the, the, the, the natural inclination that any one of us has is that we have a strong belief system about how things operate.
And if we see that as the truth, if we see that it's helpful to us, then. On some level, we say, why do we need to put in the effort to do the learning required to move ourselves in a different direction? And, not everyone necessarily comes to it as I'm a natural, naturally intrinsically motivated, learner.
And part of the reason is because orthodoxy weighs so heavily on the way we think about things. And that's particularly true when you're talking about a group like a board,, where you have to deal with the collective orthodoxy that they bring to the table. And the collective orthodoxy. Of their organizational experiences and, and the association or nonprofit itself and so on, and as well as other stakeholders.
So we need to reckon. With our orthodoxy. And I never thought I would say that certainly didn't think I would say that 15 years ago. I thought it would always be something that was present, but not primary. But now I think it's one of the principal threats that we face because it leads us toward complacency.
It leads us toward not doing everything we can,Which is really where we are right now. There are three choices for us as we think about our futures and we think about our successors. We'll do nothing. We'll do something or we'll do everything we can, ? Those are really the only three options before us and orthodoxy takes us closer to the pathway of doing nothing or only what we think we can, but very little.
It doesn't necessarily inspire us. In fact, I think it prevents us. It's a barrier to us saying we have to do everything we can to move our organizations in a new direction, to learn. Toward really trying to create the future and, and rather than defending or preserving a past that we can no longer recreate because it's not available to us, even if we want it to go there.
So orthodoxy is a huge issue, and I think that there's some foundational orthodoxies in our organizations, whether it's this continuing focus on how to make our organizations relevant, which I, I can't really. I can't really break out why we, why we think that's a good thing for us to be talking about.
I sort of wonder all the time why people say we have to make sure our organization is relevant. And when you say that out loud, I think to myself, you're announcing to people that you're not.When you say that, it's like, what, what, what are you doing? You know, it's like, we,
Carol: It's like, look at
Jeff: you're,
Carol: to me over here.
Jeff: Look at me.
I'm like, I'm not, I'm not relevant. You know, it's like, and I should, I should, when you should be saying we, we, we are making a difference, we're, we're changing the world, making an impact. We're, we're helping people. We know there's so many other things that we could be talking about that, that, and if we don't believe that we are those things that we need to be those things, it feels like such a low threshold of, of contribution.
. To say that our, our, our strategic end game is to, is to make our organizations relevant. Like, I don't understand why we think that that's so brilliant.
Carol: business.
Jeff:Like if you can't get to that low threshold, if that, if you're not there now, then think seriously about whether you should continue to exist.
And, and, and so that's one of them. I think that, there's, there's this I think increasingly toxic focus on dividing people by generational identification. You know, I used to be really. Fully invested in that idea. I was sort of loud and proud about being generation X. And then I really dug into it and I wrote about it and I researched it and wrote about it and I'm like, it's mostly nonsense and and yes, do I think that there are, there are differences between people who are in their twenties versus people in their fifties?
Yes. That's always been true long before we had labels for all of that. And and, and there's just no basis.
Carol: life
Jeff: .
Carol: usually then, although I, I, I still, I still, I still wear the Gen X banner, but it's okay. It
Jeff:But I mean,, it's, it's, it's just, there's just no basis in social reality. And it's not just me saying that it's, it's, sociologists and others who study this, who are like, yes, we understand these are popular terms, but they, they just don't really reflect the reality that we, of our understanding of how, of how people are in their various life stages in their, in their ongoing development.
And there's so many problematic reasons for my reversal. On, on this whole generational identification thing. But the chief thing among them is that we don't really use them to advance understanding. We use them to categorize and to divide, and, and more and more it's like, There's a, there's a hypocrisy in the idea of saying, and that's where the orthodoxy becomes so detrimental is when it leads us down pathways of, of even more detrimental thinking is the hypocrisy of, on the one hand, denigrating people who are younger because we don't like the way they conduct themselves relative to how.
We conduct ourselves in older age, but then at the same time, assuming that they are the ones who are going to save us from our failures, I see, I hear it all the time. And in board meetings of people saying, I, young people like to take pictures of their breakfast or their avocado toast and put it on Instagram and we want to denigrate them for that.
We want to mock them for. Who they are and what they care about. And at the same time, I also have people say, well, my kids or my grandkids, they think differently. They know how to use technology. So I'm confident that they'll figure things out. And again, I have a problem with the fundamental hypocrisy of that denigration and then extolling them in the same, the same sentence practically, but also the idea that it's their job, that it's the job of younger people to save us from what we have failed to do.
That's not the way it's supposed to work. We owe them. more consideration and more action on our part to leave it better for them. It's not up to them to try to fix the problems that we have created and failed to address. So I, so that's another area. And I think the final thing I'll say about this is, I think the focus on leadership in, in our society and in our communities has, has reached a fever pitch.
And, and to the point where I, where I am. And it's not just me, other people asking the question, there's an orthodoxy around that, that more leadership is the answer to every problem. And I think we have to start asking ourselves, maybe leadership itself is actually the problem. That certainly there's a toxicity in, in some aspects of the way we think about leadership that is fundamentally not beneficial to, to our society, to our organizations, and to those who are asked to.
To serve in those roles and which is why in my work, I've tried to challenge that orthodoxy by really focusing more on stewardship as a way of approaching framing up our responsibility to others versus the way we tend to think about the leadership piece. So, those are some examples of, of the root cause orthodox beliefs that I've identified.
There are many, many others. That exists in the association and non profit communities that we have to continue to, to challenge on an ongoing basis and, and there's some that are more generalized across these communities. And then of course there are some that are unique to individual organizations that they're going to have to confront.
But the reckoning with orthodoxy is crucial for us at this stage,
Carol:, as you were talking, I was just thinking about an article that I read recently in the post about how to give feedback to Gen Z, your Gen Z employees. And I read it and I'm thinking, what generated was the millennials and it was Gen X before that, what they want for, from the workplace. Most of the description is a description of what most people
Jeff: correct?
Carol: They want specific feedback in a timely manner. You know, they want to know what they're doing well and what they're, what they could improve on. They want both of those things. These are
Jeff: .
Carol: things.
Unfortunately, the truth is. You know, they want flexibility in their work schedule. So most people across the decades want that as well. They're not used to being offered it or, or perhaps haven't felt comfortable or safe asking for it, which may be the difference because of norms.
But,, I, I, I read those articles and just think, well, if we Instead of worrying about what generation it is, if we just treated all the folks that way, and, used really good management practice and, and good leadership practice, even though you're talking about leadership being a problem.
I, and I'd like to dig into that one a little bit more.
Jeff: Sure. Thank you.
Carol: You know, I think you're saying that, that more leadership, the answer is more leadership. And. I'm, I'm, I guess one assumption that I'm making in that statement is that there's a particular type of leadership that you're saying is problematic and if we have more of that that's not really helping the problem You know, some, there are lots of different ways of approaching leadership, but there's certainly singular models, at least in our culture, about how people think about it, who they think, fits into those categories and, and who we then lift up to the top of organizations.
But curious just to, to hear a little bit more about that as a, as one of those orthodox beliefs.
Jeff:So, so, the way that I describe the orthodoxy that the framing I use as the orthodox belief is more leadership is the answer.And, and so the way, and for me, it's just a, it's, it's, I guess it starts with a matter of cognitive dissonance that I have a problem with, which I simply at this point won't accept anymore.
I won't accept the, the, the, the, the fundamental flaw that I have with it, which is, we, we all know that there are certain characteristics that we ascribe to. The people that we think of as, as effective leaders, ? Whether it's people who are inclusive, they listen, they are largely egoless.
We sometimes refer to them as servant leaders. You know, they have certain personal attributes and approaches and, and, and ways of doing what they do that make them the leader we want to be. And we certainly. You know, I've certainly been fortunate to work with people in my career who embody many of those characteristics.
And at the same time, we have, we have people in our society across all sectors at every level who are 100, 180 degrees opposite of that, ? They are self centered, they are egotistical, they are short term thinkers, they are zero sum in their approach. And, and every negative attribute that one could imagine.
And yet we still refer to those people as leaders, ? Which reveals the lie of the fact that it's not about the title and that sort of thing. Of course it is, ? As much as we want to say that leadership isn't about title, of course it is, ? Because there are plenty of CEOs. In corporations, there are plenty of people working in government.
There are plenty of people working in a variety of sectors who are just like that. ? And, who is willing to do things. For themselves and for those who are their followers at the expense of other people, ? At the expense of their employees or at the expense of society, ? They're willing to do just about anything to aggrandize them, enrich them, ?
And yet we still refer to these two completely opposite blocks in the same way. And for me, that's the, that's the fundamental flaw of the whole idea that I refuse to, I refuse to, to just, sort of paper over anymore. I'm also concerned that our approach to leadership emphasizes so much the idea that the way we evaluate leaders is by whether they win.
. The people who are, whose virtues are extolled are the ones who win.And that's particularly, you know a male orientation to the way we think about leadership, like who's going to win the thing. Like I actually think the most effective women leaders are in my view are actually practicing something closer to stewardship.
Then they are this more traditional sort of masculine way of thinking about leadership. There's also a great preoccupation with the idea of greatness, in leadership, he, or, he's a great leader and that's where the, the hero, the great man theory, of leadership.
And I'm like, I don't, I'm not really interested in greatness. I'm interested in, are you capable of leaving it better than how you found it? Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to make it not about you, but make it about the group? You know, decides the collective ability to, to do things, to, to really invoke and, and capitalize or, take, use the, the collective agency of the decision making group.
And I think this is particularly important for boards because, again, part of the problem where I think this orthodoxy manifests itself with boards, again, which is my, my specific focus, is that we, Develop people, over the course of their lifetimes or their, their, their service in the organization over, for me, it was 15 years from when I joined, ASAE to the time I became a board member and, you get developed over that period of time and people send you messages.
You're a leader, you're a leader, you're a leader, ? And so then you put. 10 or 15 or 20 people around the table who've all been told that they've been leaders for the last 10 or 15 years. And so it's no surprise that everyone wants to take the organization in their own individual direction, ?
Because they see themselves as the leader and what they haven't, well, we haven't done effectively or really at all in most cases is help them see that when they get to this place on the board. It stops being about them. It stops being a bit really never should have been about them. But at this point, it's not about them.
It's about what this group does together, because no one person at that table is going to do this by themselves, ? Like this is what the group does. And that's why I want to situate their work in the idea of stewardship. As the way that they, the frame in which they operate together as a governing group working with others.
And the final thing I'll say is that I think that the other reason why I think stewardship just has it all over the whole leadership paradigm is that not everyone wants this. Like we want people. Our society, I think, has arrived at a place where we want people to be leaders. And if you, I can spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and I see a lot of other places where I see a lot of things written about leadership.
And for me, the message that keeps coming through and so much of what I read, the way people frame articles and the way they talk about things is that if you're not a leader in today's society, you're nothing like it's a choice between being that or nothing.
Carol: Hmm
Jeff: And I hate that because there's so much that people can contribute.
They just don't want to. The aggravation and pain and suffering that often goes with the idea that I've got to have a title, to do this, I've got to be a committee chair, I've got to have this role and they want to contribute and they can be an amazing contributor and within the leadership paradigm, there's very little room for that.
And I think what's great about stewardship is that everyone can be a steward in their organizations. Everyone can contribute to leaving it better than how we found it. And the aggregate impact of those contributions can be huge. And it doesn't require someone to be a great leader. And it doesn't require someone to be the winner.
And it doesn't require someone to be the one who's got the flag in their hand, standing up and saying, follow me, everybody, we can do this together. You know, collaboratively. So I just, I see us in a point in time where we desperately need a different paradigm for all this, because the one that we've been operating under for such a long time as I said earlier, is becoming more of the problem than the solution.
Carol:, for sure. And I often talk about how we really bring many, many voices into strategy conversations so that it's not, and it's not just about the board as a group sitting around the table, deciding for everybody else, but really bringing the whole organization together. and And I'm curious as we shift into closing out, we talked about what the challenges are, some of those orthodoxies they're getting in people's way, you, you talked about learning, you talked about the duty of insight, of foresight, how can boards become better prepared to take action about these possible futures, the turbulent twenties that you're in, that we're in you're calling it the, the thirties, the threatening thirties.
How, how, how does that work? You know, none of us can foresee the future. But what can we do to, to take action so that, we're, we're doing what you're talking about of, of actually thinking of the folks that we don't know, but who will be succeeding us and keeping their, their what they need in mind,
Jeff:So I think we can do more to foresee the future. We can't know what we can't know what it's going to look like. But I think what we can say now is that the threats that are going to shape things in the, in the, in the reason why I'm calling it the threatening 30s is because, as I wrote about in the, in the, series of articles last year is that the threats are very clear because they're already here.
. And, we're going to have to deal with them at some point. And, and, and I don't know that we're doing all that we can to, to deal with them, whether it's artificial intelligence and just generally our surrender to technology. So much of the way that our society operates, where organizations operate is now dominated by technology and AI has become sort of chief among that, but there'll be other technologies that will emerge as we go forward from here that will, amplify.
The power of, of AI and, and, and going along with that is just how much power is concentrated in relatively few hands when it comes to the issue of technology. ? So, so, relatively small number of companies, relatively small number of people. Really have tremendous people who all look alike.
That's exactlyNo, it's, it's absolutely true. It is a white male dominated paradigm for what is going on in Silicon Valley and, and to the extent that it's outside the U S it's still mostly male. And, and so I, it's absolutely true that that is, that is a problem. And they are motivated by an agenda that is completely different from the agenda that's beneficial for humanity, ?
And so, that's a problem. We see lots of deterioration in our sort of social bonds, our societal relationships. You know, associations have had An historical and nonprofits to have had an historical role to play in building social capital in our society, which is essential to collaboration and to solving problems.
And I think we've somewhat abandoned that idea. So, it goes into other areas. Obviously, the environmental collapse is on the table, unfortunately, sadly, in this later part of this decade, and certainly into the 2030s. And, and, and, economic concerns and political deterioration.
So these issues are already present. We all sort of know them. And I think what we have to start doing is, and this gets to your question, is we have to help, and again, I focus on boards, but I would agree with you that we need more voices in the overall process of figuring out how we do this and more voices and more contributors to move away from the idea of how we cope with things.
Thanks. And which I think we've been doing, mostly coping with the issues and just trying to do our best to, to get through them and really reassert our agency to try to address them.And, obviously, associations and nonprofits are not on their own going to solve the climate crisis that requires governmental action, but we need to be contributors to that process.
And the same thing is true with what happens with AI and the same thing is true with issues of human inequality and, and issues of ideological extremism. And, and all the other forces that are shaping our environment, we've got to be important and, and, and focused contributors to addressing those issues where we're looking for what are the positive, some outcomes that we can still try to achieve, even though things look very difficult, ?
Even though we are dealing with a Banny world and a world with so many crises happening at the same time. So I think that. You know, we have to lean ourselves toward that future. We have to lean into it. We have to have all of our boards and decision makers really focused on how we are going to move it forward?
I think our question at the beginning of our conversation, what will our successors say about us is a critical thing for us to be asking on an ongoing basis, making sure we're continuing to focus our motivation on how we serve those who will follow us rather than what we're going to do to try to serve ourselves.
And I realize that even in, in, in the nonprofit sector, there are a lot of people who are, who are trying to advance their cause, inch by inch on a daily basis, and it's taking a great toll on them. And I think what we have to do is, We have to help them continue to develop their capabilities and help them adapt themselves so that they can do this very important work in this very hard work without it destroying them.
And I think that's necessary for all of our boards, all of our, our. People who work in these organizations who are voluntary contributors, all understand that we need different ways of thinking and acting that allow us to adapt ourselves to what's going on so that we are not putting ourselves at risk, our own wellbeing while we're working for the wellbeing of others.
So, there's a lot of work to be done and I think that we can do it just requires us to reorient ourselves, our thinking and, and begin to shift the way we, the way we practice what we do. On an ongoing basis, and I think it's something that is an essential priority right now.
Carol: That's actually a perfect segue to the last question I always ask, which is, on each episode I asked what permission slip you would give or invitation that you would give to, now I'm saying nonprofit leaders, but maybe nonprofit stewards association stewards. What would they consider or permission slip you would give them? To avoid being a martyr to the cause, so, working towards others' well -being while not trashing your own, and then how they might work towards cultivating a healthier organizational culture as a part of that.
Jeff:So I guess I would talk about it in terms of how I talk about stewardship with boards because I, and I think again, since stewardship is a concept that I see as radiating across the organization rather than being limited to a handful of people who occupy certain positions, like even though the board in most organizations is the primary stewardship group.
What they should be trying to do is cultivate that shared sense of stewardship across the organization. So we've talked about agency because boards have agency and, and individual contributors working together have agency in organizations, but there's two other parts of it, ? And the other parts of it are vulnerability and wayfinding, ?
So when I talk about stewardship, I was talking about agency, vulnerability, and wayfinding. The way, the vulnerability part of it is recognizing that our organizations are vulnerable. As we look toward the future. And some of them may not make itAnd I think we have to acknowledge that, but the vulnerability is shared, ?
And if in a stewardship concept, The vulnerability belongs to the entire group rather than any one person. No one person's got a shoulder, all of that themselves. That is, that is a frequent request of people in leadership roles. You've got to carry this burden all by yourself. There is no question that it's a burden, like I've written about the fact that serving on a board is a burden and being on boards today, especially, has become very burdensome.
And you have to accept that burden as part of your service. But it goes along with a habit of mind of collective responsibility, ? And that's how we make sure the vulnerability doesn't fall upon any one person's shoulders, that they're not the only one who has to carry this by themselves for everybody else.
So that's one. And then the other part of it is just recognizing that there's really no playbook for where we're going, ? The issues we're dealing with are in many ways if not entirely novel, they are certainly More, they're certainly different from the kinds of things that we've dealt with probably in our lifetimes.
And so. We've got to recognize that we are finding our way through this, that it's okay to not have all the answers, that I don't know is a perfectly legitimate response to, to questions. We don't have to have every solution with every I dotted every T crossed. We have to be open to the idea that we're gonna find our way together.
You don't have to be the one who says, I've got it all figured out. Follow me down this pathway. That's not the way it's going to work, ? The way it's going to work is more like we're gonna, we're gonna try some things. We're gonna figure out how things work and when things go wrong, we're gonna accept shared responsibility for things not going in the right way.
We're not gonna punish ourselves forward, and instead we're going to change our mindset and say, okay, it didn't work. Let's try something else. Let's go in a different direction. And, the stakes are high and that won't change. We can't change the nature of the stakes. We face the nature of the challenges we face, but we can change the way we respond to them.
So I think if we adopt that mindset of. We can do something here because we have agency, but we don't have to feel all the burdens on our own. It's shared, and that we're finding our way through this together, and, and all that fits together in our minds as a, as a way we approach stewardship. Then I think that, that is consistent with what I was saying earlier, that people don't have to destroy themselves.
To make things happen because they can trust in one another more to make this a truly collective effort rather than one where ultimately it falls to one or a few people to be the ones to carry all this burden and everyone just sort of comes along for the ride. We want to get out of that, out of that, that frame of doing things because it's not sustainable, not given the, and it never really has been, but it certainly will not be as we look toward the rest of this decade and beyond.
So that would be the advice that I would offer.
Carol:, there's so much in that. And I feel like I have heard similar things from so many people recently around, you don't have to do it all yourself. a lot of what you're describing also just makes me think about, organizations detangling themselves and, Releasing the ways in which they're embodying a white supremacy culture characteristics.
A lot of
Jeff: Absolutely.
Carol: the one right way, the, the, the great hero is going to be the one person's going to do it for us and all of that. Kind of crap. I'll just say crap,
Jeff:Because I mean, that, that's, that's part of the orthodoxy too. I mean, so much, so much of what I'm, what I'm trying to do, like I, we didn't, we, we didn't, I'll just mention it here as I, I try to help organizations, this whole idea of stewardship governing and foresight is grounded in the idea of next practices, ?
Next practice, not best practices, because I think best practices by and large perpetuate the orthodoxy.
Carol:I've
Jeff: practices.So like who gets to determine whether or not it's best, ? And next practices are, are, should be our attempt to design the practices. We need to do things that liberate us from the orthodoxy, which liberate us from those old ways of thinking, those antiquated modes of thinking, those antiquated approaches and, and allow us to.
You develop our core convictions because we need to have our core convictions about what it is we want to accomplish, we're serving on a board and there's six core convictions that I, that I talk about. And then, what are the habits of mind that we need to support? Those convictions, how do we make sure those convictions can endure by the way that we think and act individually and collectively in that?
And I completely agree that we have to let go of the vestiges of our, our past and our culture that are so focused. On the way we've always done things, ? Which is obviously a very white male dominated way of looking at things and, and be far more open and inclusive in the way that we approach every aspect of things, because as I said earlier, the voices and the, the contributions of the stakeholders we're trying to serve.
Are not present in, in our current decision making, you know frameworks and processes and locations. And we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to get those voices into those conversations, whether we're doing it through our own shift in mindset or whether we're actually literally including them and that both of those things are necessary.
And so, so, so it's, it's a, for me, it's a, it's, it is a fundamental paradigm shift and what we're asking. Again, particularly in my work with boards, but more broadly in our organizations, it's a shift in the way we've been doing things for a very, very long time.
Carol: Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Jeff.
Jeff: Thank you, Carol. I appreciate the conversation.
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