A reader from New Zealand sent me a great quote this week in response to my Be Ruthless but Have a Heart post. She wrote: I once heard Stephen Tindall, philanthropic founder of The Warehouse retail chain (New Zealand’s equivalent to Wal-Mart), put this very eloquently:"We’ve got to have a cool head, a hard nose, and a warm heart."

I think there is one more characteristic great leaders must have, and in many ways, it makes up for any deficiency in the others.  Visionary, inspiring leaders of organizations have courage. This is what gives them the determination to keep going when the faint of heart give up, and the daring to be different. If Walt Disney listened to others, and followed the safe examples of the time, Disneyworld would have looked very different, and likely would not be the enduring success it is today. What’s more, the Disney empire is what others now try to emulate.

Having a great story to tell, and sticking out from the herd is the key to success. Where many individuals, and organizations, falter is not having the guts to stand out, stray from the majority, be distinct, and stay on the path. They need courage, but don’t always know where to find it. I offer these classic words of wisdom:

Oz made the Lion drink some bad-tasting green medicine, saying, "You know of course, that courage is always inside of one. This is courage, but it cannot really be called courage until you have swallowed it."

This is for Jeff Brooks, who is hosting the Carnival this week.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals is seeking nonprofit organizations to participate in its survey which closes soon.

Canadian nonprofits are urgently needed — there was not enough data collected in past years to publish viable findings. Please participate so that Canadian information is available.

Rosetta asks: what’s one thing nonprofits could do to improve the sector? My answer is, be ruthless about money and operate with heart. Sound provocative? It’s meant to get your attention. I think more nonprofits could benefit greatly from an immersion in business thinking. After many years working with both sectors, I offer the following observations.

Nonprofits exist to ask for money, so they can do good. Businesses exist to make money, while they do the good that their customers want. See where I’m going?

The most basic transaction is at play: people willingly, sometimes even obsessively, provide money in exchange for something they desire. Where this parallel implodes is that businesses make no secret that they are selling a product or service. Their organizational structure, performance expectations of staff, and all processes that get customers in the door, paying and satisfied support this common goal. If they don’t, the business fails.

Nonprofit leaders have the same skills and resources available to them as their private sector counterparts. In fact, a recent study by the Nonprofit Quarterly showed that nonprofit leaders outperformed for-profit leaders in 14 out of 17 leadership qualities, including persuasiveness, encouraging participation and sharing credit to name a few. Business sector leaders were better at coping with stress, push and pressure and maintaining energy. This doesn’t surprise me - as the report comments, nonprofit executives rely more on personal vs. hierarchical power. A telling finding: nonprofit leaders tend to rate themselves lower.

If more nonprofits harnessed the great leadership qualities their staff possess, while adopting the established best practices of business, imagine what could be achieved. I’ll be offering a free teleseminar on this very topic in a few weeks time. Watch for registration details on this site, or get on my enewsletter list to get your invitation first.

Watson Wyatt Worldwide’s recent study of internal communications trends in the corporate sector piqued my interest for two reasons: one, I am incessantly curious and can’t resist some good number twisting, and two, these trends can often be equally reported in the nonprofit sector. This report measured the change in communications trends compared to 2004.

Among the top five positive trends are the use of web technology for training and development, and a large increase in the use of internal communications to communicate organizational change. Bravo corporate America.

What disturbed and surprised me is the decrease in these areas:

• 32 per cent report a decrease in using a new communications initiative to support change
• 28 per cent report a decrease in giving employees input on how work gets done
• 46 per cent report they don’t provide a systematic orientation for new hires
• and a shocking 62 per cent don’t explain the reason behind major decisions

The moral of the story: if you plan on using internal communications to communicate change (as I hope you do), get buy in, etc. you also need to get input and listen to your staff, involve them in change, equip them with the knowledge and tools they need, and explain decisions and actions in ways that are meaningful to them. People today expect this. My six year old is more accomplished at consultation and negotiation than I was at 30. Staff vote with their feet, and there are always greener pastures so take the best of the trends and run with them, but make sure you are also doing what others aren’t. Your staff will be happier and your organization will be more successful.

As a communications professional, the one that has changed the world as we knew it is the internet. The onslaught, or epiphany, depending how you look at it, has turned the public relations and media industry on its proverbial ear. This is why I especially enjoyed this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants as bloggers covered the topic of social media. Check it out.

Hard to believe that when I started writing, I pecked my articles on a 20 pound cast iron typewriter. In my 20-something year career, I have been through the introduction of the computer, cell phone, fax machine and internet. Now I can work from almost anywhere, and get information in an instant. Even my old favourite Olivetti has gone digital. This is a new era and it will require a new way of thinking and communicating. Get online and get on board!

On this day of record consumerism, guilt and excess, take a moment to ponder the above statement: Love is not enough. You can love your donors, honour your staff, respect and cherish your board and volunteers, but like a good marriage, ongoing TLC is required to keep everyone happy, giving and content. So, here are my tips that are guaranteed to work for all of your relationships:

• Don’t take the ones you love for granted. Look for ways to connect and build it into your day-to-day life. Schedule it.
• Don’t pay attention only when you want something - avoid the fundraising one-night stand. As a side note, this has been my most popular post. If you haven’t checked it out, enjoy!
• Listen more than you speak.
• Never assume - you know the saying, it makes an … out of you and me.
• Be a part of the solution, not the problem - look for ways to pre-empt problems by being the partner you want your partner to be.
• Don’t contribute to suspicion and confusion - keep the information and dialogue going.
• Be respectful and courteous. Familiarity need not breed contempt.
• Never go to bed mad - translated in organizational terms, don’t leave conflict to fester.
• And most importantly, love is not a selfish act! It’s about them, not you.

Wishing you lots of love on Valentine’s Day.

In last month’s newsletter I ran an article on how to come up with more effective communications messages in six easy steps. To walk through the steps, read the full article here. When deciding how to communicate something with your audiences, you have to start with knowing who they are, and match your message accordingly. Here are some reminders of the basics you probably already know, but are well worth revisiting:

Know your audience – You are wasting your time and theirs if you are not positioning your message in a way that will appeal to them. In a world of information overload, this investment of thought and effort will go a long way in keeping your audience interested and connected to your organization.

Know what you want to achieve – Your message has to support your overall goal, but also has to be intended to achieve a specific purpose. Without this direction, you can’t begin to match the message to the audience. With it, your message will be effective and clear.

More emotion, less logic – Don’t bog down your message in facts, data and history. To penetrate your audience’s attention and to achieve your desired result, you need to consider their driving emotion and design your message in keeping with it.

This is guaranteed to get giggles and many nodding heads at your next strategic planning session. It’s another way of saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting to get a different result.

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover the horse you are riding is dead, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in organizations, we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

• Change riders
• Say things like "This is the way we have always ridden this horse"
• Appoint a committee to study the horse
• Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses
• Change the requirements, declaring "This horse is not dead"
• Harness several horses together for increased speed

Origin unknown. Thanks to Vicki Kranenburg.

During the course of your career, you’ve likely encountered leaders and team members at both ends of the spectrum - the upbeat person who pushes you beyond your comfort zone, and inspires action and belief, and the naysayer who seems to be full of pessimism and 100 reasons why something won’t work. Whether you are an executive director, fundraiser or accountant, when you’re a member of an organization on a mission, you are a leader - of one, or of many. How you approach your daily work, as well as the bigger challenges has an impact on those around you.

This weekend I finally watched The Secret, given to me by my first big nonprofit client about a year ago (another reason why I love working with the nonprofit sector - great people). So I am a little late to the party, but I was pleasantly surprised that it really didn’t offer any big surprise. It reinforced my experience, which is that you get back what you put out there, negative or positive. If you focus on what you can’t do, you will get exactly that. There are many variations on this theme - "we tried it and it didn’t work" or "that other organization seems to get all the funding, so there’s no point in asking" or "we spent all that money on advertising and it didn’t make a difference". The inspiring leader balances reality with a healthy shot of aiming higher than others would. A great leader also recognizes comfort zones and crushes them! The point is to be deliberate in your planning, without putting up your own barriers before you even get out of the gate. Organizations don’t succeed, people do. The secret I’m offering the nonprofit universe today is to take a page from Eleanor Roosevelt’s book: "Do one thing every day that scares you."

p.s. if you want a lesson in defying odds and thinking like a winner, how about the Super Bowl yesterday?