Benefits of Consulting and/or Project Teams Occasionally, a client will specify that they want a team of consultants on the project because the project requires substantial expertise and resources. While there can be many frustrations for consultants working in effective project teams, there are also major benefits. The team can provide a wide variety of …

Our firm gets 4-5 calls/month from people wanting to know how to start or grow a consulting practice. Obviously, there’s no standardized procedure for that. It depends on the nature of the service you’d offer as a consultant. If you’re selling services to develop job descriptions for rural electric co-ops in Kansas, well your service …

I just read an article on BNET, an online resource like the Free Management Library–no disrespect intended to FML, nor am I promoting BNET. I get my inspiration from all over. The article was titled the The 5 Dumbest Management Concepts of All Time. The author says, “These five commonly-held management concepts are responsible for …

We’ve all had successes and even some failures in our career. What can we learn? Here are words of wisdom from experienced leaders I interviewed for a career management presentation at a recent young professional conference. Seven tips to guide your career. 1. Have big enough goals. “Don’t pay any attention to those well-meaning naysayers …

Responsible planning, in any economy, involves identifying sources of funding sufficient to ensure continuation/survival of the programs that satisfy the needs of the people and the communities you serve. Ensuring the funding of your programs requires that you minimize the risk of (again?) losing a large percentage of your income. According to “Giving USA 2010,” …

Just wanted to mention a listserv devoted exclusively to social enterprise. Its focus is learning more about how organizations can develop successful social enterprise strategies to generate earned income to pursue mission, build capacity and achieve greater sustainability. If you’re interested, you’re invited to join the 7500-subscriber npEnterprise Forum listserv, the official listserv partner of …

In order for us to express our spirit in the work that we do, we must carve out the time to do it. At the date of publishing this blog post, it’s the first week of the New Year. I don’t know about you, but I’m carefully deliberating how I’m going to best spend my …

Customer Service Training: Disaster Prevention & Accountability We all know the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is engaged in the important work to prevent customer service disasters involving extreme loss of life, and because its job is so important to us, the TSA as the big dog in charge has been getting the brunt of the …

Three Sub-Systems This post is the third in a series on Leading in Complex Human Systems. In my last two posts, we began our review of The Butterfly Model of Human Systems. The Model suggests that larger world of  human systems are composed of three major subsystems: The Face-to-Face System–what happens “in the room,” in …

Wouldn’t it be good to know that every decision you take over the next 12 months will be the right one. This may sound impossible but there is a way to significantly increase the likelihood of your decisions being correct. The secret is understanding. Without understanding we are very likely to make bad or the …