How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

HLT Colton Strawsor
===

Colton Strawser: [00:00:00] people aren't necessarily afraid of change. They're really afraid of loss. And, and some cases they're afraid that all the work they've done for many years is meaningless.

You're gonna come in and change the way I've done this job for 15 years. You're telling me I'm wrong. And I'm like, no, no, no. I'm telling you, everything that you've done up to this point has made it to where we are and we're thankful for that.

Marker
---

​

Kenny Lange: Welcome to the How Leaders Think Podcast, a show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host. Kenny Lang and with me today is the He is the president of Strawser Consulting, which makes sense if you think about it. He is also the executive director of the North Texas Nonprofit Institute, which sounds fancy. We may call him Professor Dr. Strawser nonprofits develop the data [00:01:00] funding and leadership skills necessary to influence change.

Hallelujah. Having trained over 1500 nonprofit executives, that's a big number and generated over 25 million this's million with an M. It'd be weird if it didn't in government grants and conducted research needs assessments on various local social issues and has helped him develop a process that is guaranteed to help.

Your organization understand community needs, establish goals to address them and achieve civic outcomes. Welcome to the show, Colton.

Colton Strawser: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Kenny. I appreciate it.

Kenny Lange: It is gonna be fun. I always enjoy our conversations. We're just now we're gonna record them and people are either gonna be excited or terrified. But I'm okay with that sort of divisiveness. Uh, tell me today, Colton, what is on your mind?

Colton Strawser: Yeah. There's a lot on my mind. Always is, which is great. Hashtag job security. But in terms of what's going on in the [00:02:00] world and what's going on with leadership is I've been talking to a lot of organizations about lots of things, transition. Talking about reaction proactivity, reactivity now is a time for leadership if there ever was one.

When there are leadership voids or negative leadership there's. Definitely a need for people to take ownership and to step up, step out and, get to step in with different things. There's a lot of leadership challenges in. Just our world, both within our organizations, our communities, our political environment.

I was hanging out with some Canadian friends last week and they're like, what the heck is going on? And I'm like, I don't know. But it's just been quite the interesting last couple of months if you've been paying attention to anything. For sure.

Kenny Lange: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I. I love the idea that and, [00:03:00] and to be honest, like you, I've heard this a lot over the years, like just anytime there are key transitions in, in large systems, be be it government and political here Canada certainly has their own fun things to deal with. But it could be just internal shifts in leadership and an organization, which is something you and I both, we, we, Again, hashtag job security that we both deal with and, and help with a lot. What is it about transitions that makes strong leadership, solid leadership or, or a particular type of leadership may be more necessary in those certain moments And, and does. The type of leadership needed from moment to moment or time to time. In your experiences, does that need to change? Do we need different types of leaders for different types of moments?

Colton Strawser: I, I definitely think we do. I've worked with organizations that've had the same leaders for 20 years, and they're [00:04:00] doing great. I've seen others, I've had the same one for 20 years, and I'm like. Y'all, y'all are seizing up. It's a little antiquated. They may, they're like, we're not growing anymore.

And I always am thankful for all the work it took to get us where we are. I. But I recognize that sometimes the type of work or the way we work might need to be different to get us to where we wanna be. And so it's like Marie koning it, like this work brought me joy and this brought joy and it got me to where I am and has served it, served its purpose.

I am thankful for it. But I must change, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but people really hate change. People get comfortable where they are and I try to do a lot of work getting people uncomfortable. One of the things I tell people to do all the time is I'm like, just try it on.

Kenny Lange: If you see some outfit, you're like, oh God, I don't know if I'd be comfortable in that. I'm like, just try it on. Or as one of my friends with toddlers would say, take a no thank you bite. Even though you don't want to eat it. Go ahead and say, and take a no [00:05:00] thank you bite.

You may enjoy it, or you may realize, gosh, I really hate broccoli. But take a no thank you bite.

Colton Strawser: And so sometimes when we're doing change management, people aren't necessarily afraid of change. They're really afraid of loss. And, and some cases they're afraid that all the work they've done for many years is meaningless.

You're gonna come in and change the way I've done this job for 15 years. You're telling me I'm wrong. And I'm like, no, no, no. I'm telling you, everything that you've done up to this point has made it to where we are and we're thankful for that. Everyone, when I come in and do organizational change with their organizations, I'm not coming in with a bunch of flaming arrows and giving everything a Viking funeral.

I'm more so like. How can we just like maybe dust this, polish it, maybe paint it every once in a while, we're like, yeah, that don't belong here anymore. Everyone grab your bow and arrow we're setting this up in flames. But usually it's making minor adjustments and changing a couple [00:06:00] things clockwise or counterclockwise or things like that.

It's not fundamentally changing stuff. Every new iPhone that comes out is pretty much the same iPhone. It's slightly different. There's slight improvements. But, usually it works. I've discovered new features all the time. There's relatively some consistency with it.

And if the iPhone was a flop in it, didn't. It came out and it was terrible and whatever, we wouldn't have, continued using it. So the fact that you've done this job the way you've done it for 15 years is great. We just need to make some slight adjustments because the world changes, people change the way we work, changes, technology changes.

And so as the world around us is changing, sometimes we have to be open to that change too and be okay with it. And. Realize that being able to change is more of a blessing of, than it is a curse. It's the fact that you have the opportunity to do something different and do something better is rather a gift than deleting everything [00:07:00] at all.

So, changing the way you change is really helpful.

Kenny Lange: Yeah, to having that, that change of, of perspective. I really like that, that the number one, calling it an opportunity. I have little stickers that I, you know, give out when I start a new engagement. One of them says, everything's an

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: Just can we frame up, like they're not issues and problems and stuff.

They may legitimately be that, but what would happen if we reframed it as an opportunity? But I, I love what. You were saying is that opportunity to change really is a, a blessing. For some it may even feel more like a, a

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: And I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that and why. And it sounds like that's not a commonly held perspective. 'Cause it's one that you're helping people see. What is the prevailing wisdom that causes people to not see. That the chance to change is really a, a, [00:08:00] a blessing for them as opposed to oh, dear God, like we have to do this.

Colton Strawser: I think a lot of it comes down to communication when it comes to change. Really thinking about. Talking to folks about what's working and what's not. I think oftentimes when we hear the words change, it's almost like we're changing because we're fixing a negative oh, I need to change my tire.

Kenny Lange: The old tire's not working. Or, oh, I got something on me and you go change my clothes.

Colton Strawser: I need to go change this or that. And so

Kenny Lange: change has like a deficit attached to it.

Colton Strawser: And I think sometimes when. I view change, I make sure, and this is something I've adopted the last couple years, is,

Kenny Lange: there's been some moments in my life where I hated change.

That, that it's oh, this is too much. This is overwhelming. Especially when you're already maybe towards the point of burnout, you're like overwhelmed already. You're like, gosh, now I gotta figure out how to [00:09:00] change it. I've been really mindful in talking with organizations about honoring the work.

And honoring the process that got them to where they are. And, really thinking about, and once I started telling people, if we, give you any feedback for changes I first want to, it's like giving them the acknowledgement that like you got here.

Colton Strawser: And usually when I work with organizations, some of them are on the point of.

Burnout and they're just like I interviewed a whole bunch of staff members separately and the word they used was overwhelmed. They're like, I'm just overwhelmed. And I'm like, okay and this is the try it on thing. If you could change anything to make it different, what would it be? Just viewing it more as a positive or, the magic wand, if you could wave your magic wand and have three wishes, and a lot of the times the things they wish for are just so simple.

Then I'm like, okay we could do that. And I had one staff member say, you're a wizard. After I changed something at their organization, I'm [00:10:00] like, I just created a different form that streamlines all of this stat. So sometimes it's really hard to have it's really hard to do change internally sometimes, which is, not doing a shameless plug here, but having someone from the outside, like a consultant or someone else looking at it from a different perspective is really, I've had people call me, they're like, okay, tell me if I need to suck it up, or if I'm crazy, or if this situation's wonky, and I'm like, okay, all three, let's go.

So, in some cases it is, but having some outside perspective or just being willing to try it on. Be willing to maybe just admit that you don't have it figured out and there could be just entertaining the idea that something could be different is an opportunity for. Change and sometimes baby steps are perfectly fine progress points for change.

And some people are like, let's tear it down and start over. And I'm like why don't we just renovate over here a little bit first and then see how that goes.

Kenny Lange: [00:11:00] Right,

Colton Strawser: So that's some perspective too, is just try trying it on and thinking of it a little differently.

Kenny Lange: right. Yeah, you could, you could do a, a pilot, and this is where I do think to your point, like word, words

matter. I. 'Cause they, they frame our perception of the situation, they frame our reality. And sometimes just a, a simple shift in, in language can be helpful. I, I heard somebody who, he was speaking on leadership podcast or conference or something like that.

I get source amnesia and then I just believe that I said all these brilliant things. Exactly. Still like an artist, but he said, he goes, I don't know that it's so much that people don't like change. They 'cause people love to get raises. They love

new haircuts, new houses, new cars. That's all

change. But to your point, it's, it's not a negative. It's not a fixing a flat or changing clothes 'cause you spilled something or whatever. Or having a, give a presentation from memory because [00:12:00] you're, the technology in the room doesn't work. He said people generally don't like change. They didn't initiate. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit to that because you, you and I will both talk to the, the senior most executives of, of nonprofits executive director, CEOs, whatever the title is, that they may be the change initiator of some sort. But then the rest of their team feels freaked out because maybe they didn't have a vote, or maybe they knew it was coming, but it wasn't their idea or it's not being done exactly the way they, they wanted. So what, what do you tell people when, like, the change isn't a bad one? Like you said, from the outside, objectively, you look at it as no, like this is probably the right move, but they didn't initiate it. So how can people start to come to terms with change they didn't initiate, especially if they're not the one with maybe the authority to make those sort of decisions.

Colton Strawser: So change happens a lot of different ways. One of my favorite models is the [00:13:00] Codder model for Change. It's an eight step model. It's very simple. You can Google it. That's a good model on how it's important to. Create allies and to bring people together to get feedback. If you're changing the type of coffee you have in the break room, whatever, someone just make a decision.

Some change isn't a group decision, it's just like it is what it is. If you're fundamentally wanting to change something in an organization, you're giving people the opportunity to give feedback. Authentically collecting feedback rather than, tokenism where we're just, oh, you can give us your feedback even though we've already made our decision.

Which happens a lot in the public sector. But really thinking about people oftentimes know what's wrong, but they may not know what's right or how to change it. That it's themselves. And so

Kenny Lange: Hmm.

Colton Strawser: lot of different feedback from folks. I've done community needs assessments where, they asked one group of people what the [00:14:00] problem was and they're like, oh, it's this.

And I'm like, okay, that's their perspective. But when we brought in the entire community to have input, it was a whole different problem. Like that problem wasn't even registering at the top three. And they're like, oh, we never thought of that. And I'm like that's 'cause you only had perspective from one group.

And so, it's not to say to do a survey in your entire organization or community every time to make a simple decision. But a lot of people can, raise up problems or opportunities for improvement or, they can give ideas on how to make things more strategic or whatever. And so really providing the openness for input because yeah, people don't like change prescribed to them.

They wanna buy into it. And so having the opportunity for them to guide it or have some feedback. Again, recognizing that that always can't happen, but the more you have the opportunity for people to be part of the change, the more they feel [00:15:00] committed to it. And that's really what the Kotter model looks at.

Buying into the actual change will make sure the change happens and it'll be like institutionalized versus saying from, up on high, here's what we're doing. And sometimes that has to happen. I've done both, but it, it's a lot smoother and people tend to stick around when they have a little bit of an input or a little, suggestion of how things work versus it, happening to them.

Kenny Lange: They may not stop it like this is a change that's happening. But maybe you can be a part of helping shape what this change looks like or the flavor of it,

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: an aspect of it. I think Sam Walton famously said, if people can weigh in, they can buy

Colton Strawser: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: But if you don't give 'em that opportunity, then it's really hard to buy into what you're

saying. Also there's a, a phrase I use with a, a lot of clients and I always get source, I get source amnesia again. So I'm just like giving myself credit for brilliant things that other people said. [00:16:00] Is a, a problem well-defined is half solved. So like in the example where they thought, ah, this is the issue, and you talk to the community, they're maybe, but that's like number

12, bro. And so that, that communication, the, the listening is a, is a key aspect. So if if somebody is thinking, okay, I'm a, I'm a senior leader, I'm an executive director at, the, the responsibility, the accountability. Sits with me, especially in the nonprofit world, like the, the CEO executive director isn't sort of the peak of the mountaintop. Exactly. There's, there's a board that they're accountable to. Now, I could make you and I could both make the case that in a for-profit like. You're still accountable there to other stakeholders, but those stakeholders couldn't necessarily just oust you.

like a board could do to an executive director. They may say the accountability sits with me. It's my decision to make. This seems like it would take so much longer. This would go slower. And, [00:17:00] these people are typically, they're more wired like visionaries, right? They, they see further, faster. They're already living like two years from now.

Like their body's here, but the rest of them is somewhere

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: So what do you say to those, those visionary leaders that, that they may be listening to this and go, okay, great. Yeah, I already see 10 steps ahead. That's part of my gifting. That's why I'm in my

seat and the authority has been placed in me to make this decision.

And if it goes wrong, these people aren't gonna pay the price I

am. How? How do you coach and walk people through that so that they can garner the buy-in while not abdicating their responsibility or the accountability they have for their position?

Colton Strawser: Oh gosh. How long do we have? So with that question, there's a couple things that come to mind. You mentioned accountability. One of the things I've noticed over the years is people hate to be held accountable. I. They absolutely hate it. They're calling you on your [00:18:00] crap. If you said something and you're gonna do it and you don't do it, there's, there should be consequences.

A lot of the times within many organizations, there's no consequence. I always say a policy without a punishment is just a strong suggestion. And so if you say you, you have to do this or else this. There's usually none, none of that happening within an organization in some cases. So if you think about board of directors, if they're supposed to help raise X number of dollars a year and they don't do that who's gonna call them out on that?

Who's gonna hold them accountable? It should be the board chair. You should have mechanisms in place where people have. Key performance indicators. But with a lot of organizations I've worked with, people are doing a job, but they're not really hitting a goal or a metric. And so basically any work done is good work.

And it's really needing a reframe around what does success look like? And that's the bis [00:19:00] best gift you can give to people. I steal that from Brene Brown. I remember some of my sources her, her quote or something along the lines is, people understand what done looks like. What is done.

And so what is your vision of helpful? What, what do you want people to hit? And so as a leader, the more. Clarity you can give people around expectations and

Kenny Lange: goal setting the better because then one, they know what they need to do, and two, what you can hold them accountable to.

Colton Strawser: Otherwise, someone, their version of helping might be very low level and another person's version of being helpful might be really high. Both of those people may think gosh, I helped so much. Or in some cases they may be like, I didn't help at all. And I'm like, you sold a hundred tickets to our event.

That was, that was helpful. But like I could have done more and the other person who sold two is look at me being so helpful. And so, really being mindful of that. The second part to your question, as a [00:20:00] leader. I'm a fan of being radical. It's a little bit of my brand.

I'm the tough love consultant, I'll make you feel good, but also like I'm gonna push you to do something different. But when it comes to being radical in your communication, I think it's really having radical transparency. With your team, letting them know what is going on, not to, have panic ensue, but really letting them know what the situation is and where you're at, or at least your senior leadership team.

So no one's kind of held in the dark. And then who knows, like sometimes having more people working on the same problem can get better results. Otherwise it can give people a heads up. Having some radical candor within your organization, being willing to wrestle with problems and to, really dig in and talk about it.

And then the other one is, which I have the most struggle with, and I learned about this a couple years ago as radical [00:21:00] acceptance. That is. One of the most difficult things any leader is gonna struggle with is I've, I've seen my clients before go through like the five or seven, I don't know how many stages of grief we have anymore.

But I've seen them go through literally all of them in a one session. And they don't go, it's not linear either. They get to acceptance and they're like, you know what? I have an idea. And I'm like, ah, we're back to denial. And so in some cases. It's not to say be a doormat, but it's also to be like, with most leaders, they're fixers like, okay, I'm gonna fix it.

We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna fix it. And so sometimes you just have to get to the point and it's really hard where you're just like, you know what? This has happened. I accept it, and let's figure out how we're gonna move forward. Rather than trying to untangle the ball of yarn. That has been gifted to you in many cases.

It's okay, this isn't true. We're gonna do that. I'm like, [00:22:00] just radically accept it and just be like, you know what? That's how it is. I'm gonna move on. But yeah, that's, that's the hardest one. And it takes practice, but, it, it's one of the, almost one of the most important things I've learned in my journey is just to.

Go, go with the flow. And just be like, alright, that happened. What's next? How can I help?

Kenny Lange: Yeah. That's why I think control is such an illusion. We, we all, I, I, I don't know, maybe, maybe leaders are motivated this way. They're like, I'm doing good things. It's I think you just have felt outta control and so now you exercise an extreme amount or, or at least exert an extreme amount of energy trying to control every variable around

Colton Strawser: Yep.

Kenny Lange: Now I'm all for, and, and what I don't hear you saying is, Hey, you should just give up on any sense of agency you have

Colton Strawser: Mm.

Kenny Lange: your, your life or, or your leadership or your

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: Like you still have, choices that are within your [00:23:00] sphere of control, there's so much that isn't something similar.

The, it maybe wasn't radical acceptance. Even though I do practice it, that helped me get past oh man, I got a big test like in college or

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: It's I got a big test, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's whether I freak out about it or not, the test is

Colton Strawser: Yep.

Kenny Lange: It has a date. I can't control that.

So I might as well go, all right, I'll study some and let's see where the chips

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: But I, I I love the, the. The concept of one of their chief responsibilities is to establish

reality. And I'm curious, how much does that play into radical transparency? Radical candor, which I love that book.

I use a do an exercise with teams on that. So challenge directly, but care

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: And then radical acceptance. How much is, is just. Clearly [00:24:00] establishing and maybe also communicating reality. A part of all of that and, and maybe what we've been talking about.

Colton Strawser: So it's important to, I think, keep your team informed, also recognize that in some cases you have knowledge or insight that maybe needs to kept, be kept a little closer to the chest. The, if you're a nonprofit executive, like being really transparent with your board's, important because a lot of them half the time don't know what's going on.

And they're in the dark and they're like, I had no idea. And I'm like, you should have known. I think it's seeing what. Like how much feedback or panic do you want? In some cases, and, sometimes it doesn't, lead to panic. There could be really good things that you're, keeping close to the chest too.

It doesn't have to always be negative thinking about how much hope or fear do you wanna give to people at any given time? And, and that's a hard measuring cup to [00:25:00] level out. From a leadership standpoint, I'm pretty transparent with my folks. Like they, they know what's going on.

They know where we're at. Everybody has a goal to keep, revenue and projects and timelines and everything on track. And. I think it's really important to have your systems set up in place where when things are good and bad and a lot of times people don't know when something bad's happening until it's too late because they don't have any mechanisms.

They don't even have any warning signs. Along the way, it's just oh no, a cliff. There wasn't any, there wasn't like cliff ahead emergency turn around now. Like they, there should be things in place that kind of give you an idea, like something might not be working exactly how it should. And that, that's the danger zone. is

Kenny Lange: Yeah, there, there's a couple of things. And I think we, we share an affinity for, for data and KPIs and, and getting those put into place that they do so much good. I'll see your Brene Brown and raise you a Brene Brown. [00:26:00] But Clear is

kind Right, like it really is a kindness to people to give them KPIs.

Colton Strawser: yeah.

Kenny Lange: So that they know they're winning and you know they're winning. And then it, it also helps from a leadership perspective of it's not me or the, the leader versus the person. It stops being subjective. It's just that person against the standard. Like what, what is the expectation? I just got done over the last couple days doing a, a quarterly planning session with one of my clients, and we always review some of the core tools, and one of 'em is the, the scoreboard, like their KPIs.

And, the two big questions out of the, out of three that help us do a quick review are, does it give you a pulse on what's

happening and can you predict what will

happen? Like really good KPIs tell you what has happened. Okay, cool. Accurately, we could look back and see what happened. And that might be like a balance sheet or something like that, a num number of tickets sold at uh uh or at an [00:27:00] event. But great ones tell you what will happen. Like you said, is is something broken or about to break? And could we fix it, address it while it's small, insignificant or, or non-fatal? I had a friend who does some coaching. He also says he goes, I, I like to help them build KPIs that tell you if something's breaking, but also are we moving at the right pace and are we doing things at the right quality?

'Cause so many people find it, they're like, oh yes, we would love data. What should we

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: And then they'll start measuring like the dumbest things, like number of followers on Facebook or something else like that. But how, how do you help people think about what they should be tracking, what they should be looking at, how they can know when things are about to break so that they could intervene and, and help themselves before it really does a lot of damage to the organization.

Colton Strawser: I think [00:28:00] a lot of nonprofit executives this is a broad statement, but I've seen it a lot. Don't necessarily understand how finance works. They may be a good fundraiser or they may be a good programs person or marketing or development, all that stuff. But sometimes they don't get how finance works.

And so a lot of organizations don't have even businesses a cash flow statement. So they sometimes don't know, like every July they're like, why is it so dry? And I'm like it's been that way for years, so you should not expect it to come raining down on you with money if it's a dry time. And so it may just be the way your calendar's set up.

It may be the way you're, pushing everything maybe July's a time for you to do an appeal to raise some more money. Yeah, Having a cash flow statement and knowing when, when money comes in and goes out, a lot of places don't know that.

And sometimes you don't 'cause it's not super consistent. But that's an opportunity to know monitoring and having [00:29:00] your KPIs and seeing what are our quarterly goals? What is this, what is that? How can we make improvement? And the other thing is having goals. Be smart. Smart goals, specific, measurable attainable, realistic, time bound, all those different things.

A lot of goals aren't smart. They're like raise more money. I'm like, okay. How? They're like, oh, we're gonna, we write a grant, we're gonna write more grants. I'm like, okay, great. Who are you gonna ask for that? I called them on their bluff because. That's the solution to everything.

Oh, we're just gonna ask more people for money. I'm like do you have a list of 40 people that might be interested in giving and capable of giving that amount? No. And I'm like, Hmm, it's not really a goal yet, is it? That's a wish. And so really having mechanisms in place to know how, how are we doing?

And being able to see that you don't need to be in real time, but reviewing something monthly is helpful. If your goal's gonna be to ask more, [00:30:00] do more, be more produce more. Okay. How? Show me how. And if you, if you can't show me how, then I don't believe you. So

Kenny Lange: hope's not a strategy

Colton Strawser: say that all the time and I have, I'm, I need to get it cross stitched on a pillow so I can scream into it.

But yes, hope is not a strategy. It's just I, I swear people ask me stuff. I'm like well, I'm fresh outta miracles today, but you can try tomorrow. It's, it's hope is not a strategy, my friends. You need to know how you may not know where, but as long as you have a compass, a general direction.

The tenacity to get through it, then okay, maybe I'll come along with you on the journey. But if you're just like here's where I wanna end up. I have no idea how to get there, and I don't even know if the place exists. I'm like, all right, get your fairy dust, Tinkerbell, we're gonna try and fly.

It's just not gonna happen. Hope it's not a strategy. People coming soon to a store near you and a cross-stitch pillow by Kenny and Colton.[00:31:00]

Kenny Lange: There you go. I

Colton Strawser: Is it our Etsy page?

Kenny Lange: Yes, exactly. We're gonna link that up. It'll be in the show notes. We should come up, we should have that maybe for if not the leadership institute. For the, for the

Colton Strawser: Exactly,

Kenny Lange: is just have a small merch table of. Hope is not a strategy. Pillows, I'm pretty sure we could come up with

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: I, I want to tie back this discussion on, on like data and, and information back to the, the, the topic of change that we started with, which is how does having data good? And I want to clarify

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: 'cause that's what we've been discussing. 'cause there's, there's

Colton Strawser: Yes.

Kenny Lange: But

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: are few and far between.

Colton Strawser: Yep.

Kenny Lange: But so when I say data, I'm gonna also mean like good insights or good data that'll be implied for

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: the listener. How, what role does it play in change, whether it's in the Cotter model or, or just in, and how you have seen it [00:32:00] play a positive role in helping leaders and those, they lead through the change.

Colton Strawser: Yeah, you, you hit the nail on the head where there's a difference between data and insight. And I include that on a lot of my marketing material where nonprofits have a ton of data. It may not be in a good place. Spiritually but physically. And so when it comes to having good data I was on a call with a client this morning and I said where do you keep that data?

And they're like we keep it in in our, client management system. I'm like, great. How do you put it in there? They're like, oh we fill out paper forms. We scan it and upload it as a PDF. I'm like, that's useless to me. I can't access it. And yeah, again, tough love consultant. They're like, oh yeah, we never thought of that.

I'm like, you can't aggregate it into a report because it's a PDF. And they're like, oh. So, when it comes to having all these tools and stuff, you have to have data in a good location being accessible and using it. One of the quotes my former boss used to tell me is, collect the [00:33:00] least amount of data to tell the best story.

And so in some cases, organizations. I hate when they're tracking their Facebook metrics. I'm like, no one cares unless you're getting a million dollars in donations on Facebook. And it's the most engagement you have. Okay, cool. I don't care how many followers you have, I used to work in politics.

You can buy followers by the unit. So if you want me to create a page by the end of the week that has a million followers, great for enough money, I could do that for you. But when it comes to having good data. It's really hard to argue with numbers 'cause they don't argue back.

People will, and you can manipulate numbers to tell them any story. You can, I can take any spreadsheet and make it scream long enough to tell you the number you want to hear, it's really hard to put it data in front of people, which is why I do a lot of organizational assessments.

So I have surveys and I do other things and it comes back with a point value. And it will say something to the effect of, your, your board leadership is, not quite satisfactory. [00:34:00] Here's some suggestions on how we can improve it. And they're like, oh, okay. Where if I just came in and looked around, I was like, your board's not that satisfactory, it's marginally adequate.

They'd be like, excuse me, how dare you attack me? And really the numbers and getting people's feedback and giving them numbers back. Showing them that it's not sustainable is helpful. I've had some people try to argue with numbers and that is their choice. It's what I call my office an option. It's never the right option.

When I say that, I'm like, oh, that's it. That's an option. They're like, you didn't say

Kenny Lange: one

Colton Strawser: Yeah,

Kenny Lange: your

Colton Strawser: you didn't. Yeah, exactly. You're like, I had a client say you didn't say that was a good option. I'm like, very perceptive. It was an option. It's not a good one. But, looking at financials and looking at other things, being like.

Having the numbers that will say, this ain't gonna work, or this isn't gonna work in the long run. It gives you an opportunity to make some changes. Like, Oh, if we do this, this, and this, then we actually do make a profit. We don't lose money. [00:35:00] Or, we can do other things. And so when it comes to data, figuring out how to get insights from it, you don't need to count every little widget and gadget and gizmo.

It's really thinking about. Again, what's the least amount of data to tell the biggest story? And when I work with clients on figuring out how to collect data, I always ask them, what are the three things you would like to know the most? And so that's what we start with. Then once they start gathering that they get better.

Rather than me coming in and being like, oh, here's the 26 key metrics that we can track at this agency. Here's a magic spreadsheet. I need to teach you all to use Salesforce even though I hate Salesforce. I need to do this. It's what are the three things that would be most helpful for you to know right now?

And then we start with that and we start adding. And that's how I build out a client dashboard where I had one person say, I just wanna know my demographic. And they kept everything in a Google sheet. And so I wrote some formulas and stuff where I'm like, every time you add a new client, it updates your demographics automatically on this one dashboard.

They're like, what? [00:36:00] And I'm like, it wasn't very challenging, 'cause I know Excel really well, but for them it was just the most wonderful shift ever. Because if someone called, or they need to write a grant about the client demographics, 50% of our clients are on the autism spectrum, or 40% of our clients are,

Actually under the age of 18 or whatever.

It gave them an opportunity , to quickly see, rather than going through each client profile, which I've done this before with sticky notes, and I have my little tally marks and I read through each client profile, I'm like. One to this column, one to that column. One to that column. And so they have to do that literally every year.

This makes it a little simple. So, things like that.

Kenny Lange: That's why I'm such a huge fan of platforms like databox, where you can filter multiple sources, Google Sheets, things like that. Um, and, and then you can create

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: You can, and you can make, and it's very pretty and everybody loves a pretty [00:37:00] visual. But I love the idea of the, like three, what's three things you want to know.

I used to do that when I was in the, the world of HubSpot agencies and I would be doing their. Implementation and they would be like, we, we gotta track this and we're tracking it. And I'm like, yeah, timeout. I was like, what are three to five questions you have to answer on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis?

And if you have a boss, like a board, or maybe you report to the CEO or COO or whoever, I was like, what are they always asking you that you need to have a fast answer for? And when you start framing it that way, they're like, oh. Suddenly, they're like yeah, I need to be able to tell 'em this. Okay, cool.

Let's build a report for

that. And it may need to be a little custom. We might need to write some formulas. We might need to figure out like you're not tracking this portion of it to, so now we need a tracking mechanism and we feed it right in here. And so when people start thinking about What are the questions I need to

answer? Like demographics or, or [00:38:00] whatever. If you're a grant writer or things like that it suddenly becomes much easier to say, oh, I actually only need to track a couple of things. Not everything's

important. And I, I, I used to tell my clients on the agency side, something very similar, what your boss said is what we need to understand the, the story the data's telling us. Slow your roll. All these numbers are

cool. Um, do you know what they mean? And they're like, ah this one's

bigger. I'm like, okay, Copernicus let's, let's break this down. And then they would go, oh, I only need to know a few things and I just need to watch the, the difference

over

time. Yep, that's it.

And you can make a decision on it now. So, Colton, if, if somebody they're listening and with, without fail, somebody's going through a change, right? Because was it the only consistent thing is

Colton Strawser: Mm-hmm.

Kenny Lange: Change in taxes and

Colton Strawser: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: change, taxes, death.

Colton Strawser: Pillow.[00:39:00]

Kenny Lange: but. there it is. There's, yeah, we're gonna have, man, we're gonna have a ball and Etsy shop. But I'm looking forward to that. So what, what would you tell somebody that that's listening and they's I'm in the midst of change. Change. I'm on the front end of it, or maybe I'm navigating and I've been doing it poorly. Like they're, they're listening. What's a baby step they could make? In the next 24 hours, spending little to no money to I improve the process of change that they're experiencing.

Colton Strawser: So, I, I hate this quote, but I love it too. 'cause I use it a lot. I'm like, you can't eat the elephant in one bite. And I think when oftentimes people think about change, they think about. Where they are and where they wanna be. If that's clear. Great. A lot of times with change, we sometimes don't know where we even wanna be.

We just know that change is happening. I always ask people what's the, what's the first, next step? And so, and some cases, a lot of times the reasons change doesn't [00:40:00] happen is because you don't get buy-in from everyone and it falls apart. You get overwhelmed before you even start the race.

And so it's sometimes it's like running a marathon versus, going from A to B. It takes some time and sometimes your direction will shift. And so being okay with recognizing you're, you're gonna have some roadblocks, some detours.

Kenny Lange: Mm-hmm.

Colton Strawser: But also realize you need to stop. And I'm mixing way too many metaphors right now.

We're, we're hopping in a car now, but realizing that as you go on this journey, sometimes you need to stop and get gas and stop and rest and just double check direction because a lot of people will get super overwhelmed with the amount of work that has to happen with change. And. Just figuring out the next two or three steps okay, in the next two weeks I'm gonna do this.

In the next four weeks I will do this. Break it down instead of trying to do it all at once. The [00:41:00] other thing with change, and this is with organizational change, and I do a lot with organizational culture and really getting organizations to be high performing, is a lot of people get really tired halfway through and give up, and then it gets worse.

I tell people all the time, it's often gonna get a little bit worse before it gets a lot better and I warn them ahead of time. I'm like, you gotta stick with sometimes these changes. And it's gonna suck and you gotta get through it. But, I've noticed a lot of nonprofit people wanna be liked.

I'm like, if you wanna be liked, sometimes leadership ain't for you, my friend. Because. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions and you can't make everybody happy, you're not a taco. So it's really helping people see

Kenny Lange: That's a

Colton Strawser: that's a pillow.

Kenny Lange: right

Colton Strawser: It's one of my favorite quotes is, you can't make everybody happy.

You're not a taco. And it's the same thing with leadership. I'm like if you wanna make everyone happy I don't know, be a clown or a magician or [00:42:00] something. But then people are still afraid of magicians and clowns. But. Really navigating through change is don't give up because then that just makes you look foolish.

Or realize that it may take longer. Yeah, it does. And

I've worked with a lot of leaders where I was working with them on a project and they decided, this is too much. We need to stop. And I'm like, you're, you're halfway. You're, you're in that canyon where it's I don't know if I should keep going.

Maybe I should turn around. If you turn around, you're never gonna be able to come down this path again. We're gonna pull a stick out of the mountain and all these boulders are gonna fill up this canyon. Never gonna be an option. So just sticking with it, taking breaks, celebrating the small winds, recognizing that the road of change is not freshly paved and smooth sailing.

There are Texas sized potholes. You will inevitably hit. And that's okay. Sometimes you just need to reflect and keep going. But yeah, once [00:43:00] you pull the pin out of that change grenade, you you gotta commit, you gotta keep going, so,

Kenny Lange: I love that. And there's, there's some great metaphors. I feel like another pillow would be the

Colton Strawser: yeah.

Kenny Lange: with the pen out. That'll be, that'll be great. I don't know, maybe that'll give me a good name for for my next talk.

Colton Strawser: exactly.

Kenny Lange: Colton, if, if people wanted to know more, more about you your consulting firm or the North Texas Nonprofit Institute where would you send them?

How can they

Colton Strawser: Yeah, so I would love to stay connected with folks if you have questions. Yeah, I'm always happy to take emails and stuff. But for the consulting business, Colton Strawser Consulting, you can visit colton strauser.com and for the North Texas Nonprofit Institute, it's n tx nonprofits.org. We have a variety of trainings, conferences, events, whole bunch of different things for nonprofits throughout North Texas.

So feel free to check those out and stay up to date on all, all the fun learning opportunities that we have.

Kenny Lange: Awesome. [00:44:00] I, and I'm excited 'cause I, I love going to the events and it feels like camp. I get to see all my friends. So, we'll travel in packs. Colton, thanks so much for, for spending some time with me today. This was a fun conversation. It sounds like we, we probably have a few more topics we could. Dive into and come up with new, new pillows and, and t-shirt ideas as well. Lots happening in this episode. Thank you listeners. If you made it this far, I hope that you got a ton of value out of this. Do I Don't take it for granted that you would spend some of your day listening to this podcast.

If you got value like subscribe, rate, review, all the fun things on, all the fun buttons, on all the platforms, whatever is relevant. One gives me feedback. I'd like to know, what, what could I be doing better or what could I be doing different? What things would you like to see in the future?

That feedback is helpful for me 'cause help me help you, help me help you. Um, and then also your interactions will help more people discover this content so that they can get the help they need along their leadership journey. So that's a free and [00:45:00] easy way for you to bless someone else, and that will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It's not as good as a taco. But it's darn close. Until next time, change the way you think. You'll change the way you lead. We'll see you.