So, many, many organizational leaders will
struggle from their position as CEO and founder to get real information,
to have somebody speak up to you and give you can't and I say,
''No, that's not a good idea."
Or "Here's my great idea,
and bring it forward to you. ''
I know this is something you've thought a lot about,
so how do you get that bottom-up information?
I think we have really, as you say,
we've really worked hard on this at first book, and it's multi-layered.
One is, we believe deeply in
team leadership and so there's no one head at the organization.
It's a team of four people.
We have enormous faith in each other and
that sets a tone because the rest of the organization,
they watch how we interact.
Yeah.
They see that Jane the CFO or Chandler,
they ask me very difficult questions or I may come up with a,
what I believe is a completely genius idea and they will shoot it down pretty,
pretty aggressively with great caring and all,
but in grade humor.
But the interaction is very clear and so it
emboldens people and teaches them that it's okay to question.
So that's one thing,
I think a second thing is,
we really do focus on how we interact at
meetings with our team and so for example, I will say,
I'll present an idea and I will say to junior person,
''Tell me three things that you love about my
idea,'' and they'll stand up and come up with three things and then I'll say,
''Okay, now tell me three things that you hate about my idea."
Usually, it's so playful that it's,
you've you've lowered the threshold,
you've lowered the barrier and they feel as though they can step forward.
By the way, I think that's critical not just with
our internal interactions but I also think
it's critical for our relationships with corporations.
We often have almost identical conversations with the companies,
Yeah.
That support us because it's hard sometimes for them to feel like they can be critical of
their nonprofit partners and that sometimes the most important thing they can do for us.