One of our passions at Fundraising Leadership is helping nonprofit leaders to bring a coach-like approach to their organizations. And of course we like to walk our talk in this regard. This means we focus on building trust, setting goals, measuring progress, being curious, and creating a culture of accountability within our own team.
So as our Q2 came to a close, the Fundraising Leadership Team gathered together for a mid-year review.
We structured our conversation around our OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Metrics) tool that we created at the beginning of our fiscal year. Simply put an OGSM provides clear goals and identifies the strategic choices to achieve them.
The OGSM allows us to keep track of our commitments. We can see what we are going to do and not do and who is taking responsibility for leading each tactic. As our team has expanded from two to four people the OGSM become even more crucial to keep us aligned and on track.
Our objective this year is “Reinforce the Foundation. Maintain Momentum. Expand the Business.” This objective reflects where we are in the life cycle of our business. We have spent 3 years co-creating and delivering coaching programs, workshops, and online courses. Not to mention building all the parts of the foundation – our systems, website, blogs, podcasts, etc. Our focus this year is to expand from this place of strength.
Reflecting on this experience we noticed four key ways that this mid-year review supported our team.
Celebrating Success
As coaches we love to help our clients to pause and acknowledge their success. We also love to remind each other to do this. So far this year we have produced two podcasts every month and have interviewed 8 guests. When we started our podcast in 2018 we were very aware of the fact that consistency is a challenge for new podcasters. So to see that we have honoured our commitment in this area is very fulfilling. And it reminds us just how much fun we have had in co-creating this. I mean really how cool is it that we have our own podcast!
Accounting for Results
As a team we have a strong affection for accountability. And for holding accountability without judgement. This is where the coaching skill of curiosity is key. We can simply ask ourselves and each other “did you do what you said you were going to do? If not, why not?” Since we build these conversations into our everyday interactions with each other things tend to get done. Reviewing Q2 we could see that some things didn’t get done and understand that we had chosen to say no. Sometimes an idea no longer makes sense or it simply isn’t the right time to implement it.
Learning from Failure
In many ways learning from failure flows from accounting for results. We ran two online courses this year and were able to celebrate that success. The participants experienced growth and learning and we had fun delivering them. And we failed to meet our goals in terms of number of participants and revenue. It can be challenging for teams to fall short of their targets, and we are no exception to this. We used our mid-year check in to talk about what we can learn from this experience.
Charting a New Course
The final impact is really the outcome of all of this learning. Our successes give us a chance to see what is working and what is giving us energy. Tracking our results helps us see where we are and what gaps exist between that and where we want to be. And our failures offer key information. As David often reminds us, everything’s an experiment – we can step into new ideas with confidence that no matter what happens we learn and move forward. So we made choices and changed course where needed. And now we chart a new course into Q3 and beyond.
We would love to hear your ideas. Share in the comments how your team approaches its planning, goal setting and tracking.
And if you are interested in learning more about using an OGSM to support your team, check out our You’re A Manager, Now What? self-paced course.
Janice Cunning is a Leadership Coach who is passionate about partnering with fundraisers to help them create an inspired vision that transforms lives. She is a Certified Relationship Awareness Facilitator who uses SDI to strengthen team dynamics.