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Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
How to Recruit and Keep the Team You NeedNonprofit Sector
00:39:56
Rob interviews William Vanderbloemen who shares his experience about starting a cause-based search firm. His firm emphasizes the need for nonprofits to prioritize soft ...
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- [00:02]
Dr. Rob Harder
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the Nonprofit Leadership podcast, Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All of these reasons combined led me to start this show. And it's my hope that through this series, people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are successful successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better. Hello everybody and welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. So glad you've tuned in today. Hope you're having a wonderful day wherever you are Tuning in today. So today's topic, recruitment and retention. Now I know I've had some, lots of conversations actually in the last few months about this topic, but it's just, it's literally I'm something I'm talking about every day with other leaders across the country. Country, with people in my own organization, of course, other colleagues, nonprofit leaders around my area. This is such an important issue and it's only becoming more important with the difficulties of hiring the right staff, coming up, the right salary wage, creating the right culture. All of these things play into retention and recruitment. So my guest today is William Van der Blumen. He started an organization several years ago and it's called simply vanderblumen or vanderbilumen Group. And if you ever are looking for a new staff person, you may have run across them before. They particularly focus on nonprofit organizations, schools and faith communities. And so not only do they help you find the right new staff person to place into your organization, but they provide a whole bunch of tools on leadership culture, creating what kind of culture do you have? How can you improve your culture? And more. And so in fact, in the show notes of this podcast episode, you'll see a lot of different links. I encourage you to check it out. There's, there's a lot of good just materials and resources out there that William will talk about today. So let me just start out by saying this. One of the things that I've learned in my own leadership experience, when it comes to retention, you really back up from retention to recruitment. Retention starts with good recruitment, having a clear and healthy recruitment process and a really good onboarding process so that when you place your staff now, they can hit the ground running. So this and many more conversations and topics I should say are part of this conversation today. I'm really glad you Tuned in. This, I think is going to be a a very instructive episode. As always, thanks for tuning in to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Now onto the show. This podcast is sponsored by Donorbox Donor Box, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Welcome everybody to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. I'm so glad to have William Vanderblumen on the show today. William, thanks for joining us today.
- [02:56]
William Van der Blumen
Thanks so much, Rob. I'm really glad to be with you.
- [02:58]
Dr. Rob Harder
Absolutely. Well, you know, this topic of recruitment and retention is a conversation I'm literally having all the time. I just had it at lunch with a group of people representing the Vail Resort who support nonprofits in our area. This is a topic of conversation. So I'm glad you're here because you do a lot of this is kind of your world and I think the one of the first, best steps towards staff retention is really good recruitment and making sure you're recruiting the right people at the right time to match your ethos at your organization. So let's start out your organization. Tell us a bit more about Vanderbilemen and why you started it and what you're really aiming to do, particularly as it applies to the nonprofit sector. That would be great.
- [03:39]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, no, that's great. I'm still learning this business. I was a pastor 100 years ago. Left the pastorate to go into the corporate world and went to work for a large company and Fortune 200. I think they were at the time a little bigger than Starbucks. And I was doing a management rotation and the first year was in hr. And so during that year our CEO said, I've been here nine and a half years. That's long enough time to do a transition. And they hired this thing called a search firm. Never heard of it. I was I my pastoral world. I had been the senior pastor of a fairly good sized church, about 5,000 adults, a couple thousand kids, a school, all kinds of non profit arms to it. They and it and it's a good church and a good job. And it took them three years to find me. I was there six years and it took them three years to find the next guy. And everybody thought that was normal.
- [04:41]
Dr. Rob Harder
Wow, okay.
- [04:42]
William Van der Blumen
I'm at this Fortune 200 company and they hire this thing called a search firm and 90 days later they've got their new CEO. And I just sat there and thought, oh my goodness, businesses may or may not have a value that drives them. Why do they have a better solution for staffing than the people who are living for a Cause, you know, trying to help homeless people, trying to help churches, trying to help faith based schools, trying to help, you know, whatever the thing is. And turns out nobody was really doing that. You know, the nonprofit world had not caught up to. A lot of times I've heard one nonprofit person say, you know, we're really good at raising the flag at sunset, if you follow a little later. So I came home and I, Adrian and I just got married. We just blended our families. We had six kids, a house we could barely afford. And I said, I think I'm supposed to quit my job and start a cause based search firm. And we'll start with churches, why not? And it'll be a new idea. And Adrian looked at me and said, oh, that's because churches love new ideas. Right. Nobody really does. Right. So. So. Oh, and it was the fall of 2008, which was just a brilliant time to quit your job and start something new. So, yeah, I mean, I was so stupid, Rob. I mean, it's a surprise that the whole thing worked. But now, you know, 3,000, 3,500 completed searches later, we're still learning. Every single time we learn a client, it's a, it's a whole new adventure into learning what makes them tick and most importantly, learning their why, you know, and. And because of all the search firms that are out there, there's not really one that I've run across that says, let's start with your purpose and what you're trying to achieve. And then we'll learn about what the business competencies are and the, you know, how do you raise more money if you're a fundraiser? How do you recruit more volunteers? That's secondary to this bedrock thing that you're doing in Park City that, you know, World Vision is doing all over the world, which we've worked with, or Compassion with children, and it's just been great. I mean, I think if we wanted to make a lot of money, we would go into corporate executive search because it's kind of a tired industry, it needs a refresh. But we're way more excited about finding people who are giving their lives and their careers to something beyond themselves and trying to help them find the right talent. So that's a longer answer than you wanted. I told you. I guess you're always just a recovering preacher, right?
- [07:18]
Dr. Rob Harder
Exactly. That's right. That's funny. No, I love that. Always love hearing the story. Whoever starts an organization, nonprofit business, it's always interesting what prompted you in the first place. And then obviously you kind of stuck your neck out there and now look after the fact you turn out to be, you know, you've got genius vision now of what you provide is so important. And particularly now I feel like post Covid this issue of recruitment and retention there therefore is so, so important, it's become even more of a, you know, hot button issue. So let's talk about this. Let's talk about the recruitment side of skills and qualities. Whatever. What are some of the top skills or qualities that nonprofits should prioritize when it comes to recruiting new staff from what you've experienced?
- [07:58]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, I would say that such a good question. I mean just the fact that you're asking it shows that you're way ahead of the ball game. And if you're listening, you're already trying to up your game. But I think, I think this can be true for all industries, but particularly for volunteer driven organizations, which volunteers are the backbone of every nonprofit. I don't care how big you are. Right. It's human. I call it soft skills. I don't know if you ever heard the business term. We're a B2B business, like business to business business. I think, I don't know if we made this up or not, but we call it H to H skills. Human to human. Because you know, you can be the best fundraiser in the world, you can be the best closer in the world, you can run the best organization in the world. If you don't have soft skills, you're going to run the volunteers off and you don't have an organization. I can't tell you, Rob, how many times I've met an exec director who needs to go out and raise funds for the organization all over the country or the world as a state. And they need somebody to run the operation, right. They needed number two, a CEO kind of thing. And they say, and we've got this great businessman or businesswoman on the board and I think they're perfect. And the businessman's already made enough money. And they just say, okay, now I'm going to move from success to significance. And I'd say that works out a little less than half the time.
- [09:16]
Dr. Rob Harder
Oh, wow. Okay.
- [09:18]
William Van der Blumen
Well, I used to say, why? Because I did the same thing when I was a pastor. We find a great corporate exec to run the church for me. Here's the thing. What it takes to excel in business often requires a lack of H to H skills.
- [09:33]
Dr. Rob Harder
Interesting.
- [09:34]
William Van der Blumen
And I've seen way sometimes it works out great. So if you're thinking about that and you're listening it could be a home run, but it could also be a total nightmare because the thing that made your friend great in the business world might run off all your volunteers. And to me, I'm still learning. But volunteers are the ball game in nonprofit. And that means people running the organization better see them as an asset and not a tool. Better see them as a currency, a lifeblood, and not a means to an end. And I don't know, that's just top of mind for me. And we actually did a research project. Let's see, we started it three years ago, four years ago now. We said, of all the people we've ever interviewed, who are the top 1%? Then we said, what do they have in common? And it wasn't the ability to balance books or spreadsheets or sell or raise money. It was human soft skills. We identified 12 habits these people practice and put it out there for people to read so you can get the person running your volunteers read this, develop these 12 habits and you'll be in better shape. And maybe I'm just the guy. I've got a hammer, so everything looks like a nail. But the longer I study this, the more I'm convinced that soft skills, H2H skills, are the ballgame in nonprofit. And I know this is a nonprofit podcast, but I would say it's also the ballgame in the corporate world. If you're a board member listening and you run a team, think about how the competencies in your business are going to begin to be AI driven, a whole lot of mechanics. And the only thing left is for humans to be humans with one another. And we're going to crave it more than ever because there's going to be so much automation. It's a wonderful time to be alive. A fabulous. It's going to make the renaissance look like nothing. But I really think that and I think that the people who will get ahead of the curve working on H to H skills are the ones who will win the ball game in the nonprofit sector for sure. And I think in the for profit sector as well.
- [11:41]
Dr. Rob Harder
Okay, boy, well said. And just from my experience, I've been in the nonprofit world for about 30 years and I would 100% agree there is no replacement for human to human skills. And actually I've had people on the show quite a bit to talk about AI. In fact, I had the Microsoft's, the person who leads their social impact arm, if you will. And they're really struggling to think that through now. They're really trying to put a lot of effort into it of how do you. While you have this high tech program of AI and it's exploding, like you said, all these different applications and new technology, but how do you not lose the high touch at the same time? So I think you're getting at the very heart of nonprofit leadership. So good stuff. Okay, so. And when I think about my own organization, I found how it's so important and how powerful it is to maximize both your organization's mission and values. Like that really creates you, set you apart, and it creates a niche for you in the nonprofit world that you live in. Now, what have you found to be the most effective strategies when it to. When it comes to, like, maximizing one's mission and values in order to attract the staff that they really want? What have you found really works in that?
- [12:45]
William Van der Blumen
Well, there's an old saying when I was telling a buddy when I first started this back in 2008, I said, he said, you're going to start a search firm? I said, yeah. And he said, for what? And I told him, I said, and it's just a tiny little niche. It's not. He said, william, there are riches in the niches.
- [13:02]
Dr. Rob Harder
Oh, I like that. Okay.
- [13:04]
William Van der Blumen
And I have thought of that about so many different things. But I think what. What really attracts volunteers, particularly if your nonprofit is looking for millennials or Gen Zs. 75% of millennials want to know the purpose of a company before they'll take a job at the company. So if you're, if you're a nonprofit and you're attracting staff or volunteers, the more crystal clear you can be about your particular mission. What is it that makes your work in Park City different than something else that's going on? What is the uniqueness? And if you don't have one, I'd say get one. Because in my view, the non profits, there's a divergence that's happening, a bifurcation, if you will, where the big ones are getting really, really, really big. I mean, world vision is massive. The Red Cross is unbelievable. And then there's the smaller ones that the ones that succeed are the ones that say, here's the one thing we do that very few people do. I think the riches in the niches, and that applies to your mission and your vision. Don't just make it spreading love, whatever. You know, the Red Hot Chili Peppers spread love. Make it specific and articulate and quick. An elevator pitch worth something short enough to tweet. And I think it'll create some stickiness, whether you're recruiting volunteers or attracting great staff. Yeah.
- [14:34]
Dr. Rob Harder
Okay, like it. Riches in the niches. There we go. Great quote. Love it. Okay, now, how big of an impact does an organization's culture have when it comes to recruitment as well as retention? The reason I asked that question, and you've probably read the same studies, there's studies out there that point out when people are looking for a job, not just the nonprofit sector. This is also true for the for profit. They're looking, yes, for a paycheck, yes, for good benefits, but they're looking for a really good culture. Is that what you found? And if so, how does a nonprofit really create that culture that again will attract the right staff?
- [15:05]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, I, I, I've always thought it matters, but I think a good culture matters more than I ever imagined it would in a post pandemic world. Now, I know it's been four years since the pandemic, but we're still kind of finding our footing. About. Well, I want a remote, I don't want to come into the office, so. And you can build a culture with a remote company. That's a, that's a whole nother podcast. But if you're going to have a place people have to report to for work, it's more important than ever that it be sticky, attractive, irresistible. There are all kinds of words for it. And ironically, maybe I should say providentially, in 2018, where our little company was winning all these crazy awards, it kind of got silly at the end. I mean, it was, you know, third best place to work in the city of Houston, top company culture in the whole country from Entrepreneur magazine, best, best office dog, like in Texas or something. It was crazy, right? And my staff came to me and said, we need to write a book on building a great workplace culture. And I said, why? And they said, because sooner or later we're going to quit winning awards. So I looked around at some of the great books on workplace culture. There's one called Work Rules that the Google people wrote. There's one called the Nordstrom Way. That's amazing. The new gold standard outlines the Ritz Carlton's philosophy. And it's amazing. But every book I found was about one company and how they built their culture. I said, okay, fine, why don't we commission a study from our own people? Let's go dig up 150 or 200 companies, nonprofits, faith based, just across the board, organizations that are winning top company culture, and let's see what they're doing that has similarity. Okay. That turned into a research project and our Research projects turn into a book. The book's called Culture Wins. And in it we kind of outline, here's what we learned studying these folks. It's amazing how much congruence they have. And it starts with understanding if you have a healthy place to work. We identified like 8, 9 in some circumstances. But if you're multi site or multi location nonprofit, but eight key indicators of just general health. Is this a healthy place or a toxic place? And then we built a software tool that goes around. It's called, you can go look at it. There's a free version of the culture tool.com theculture tool.com and then you can take it and you can see how you stack up against 5,000 other values driven organizations. If it was a corporation, it was a chick fil a, if that makes sense. If it, if it, you know, so these are all people that are driven by mission and values. And you can see how do we stack up and where do we get better and where do not. So that's, that's step one. Find out if you're healthy, because no one is perfectly healthy, right? Step two is to begin to articulate what makes your culture unique. What are the 4, 5, 6, 7, maybe 8 values that you guys share? And here's how I think of culture, Rob. There are a lot of great definitions. The one that works for me right now is, you know, if you've got a mission to end homelessness in Park City or whatever that, you know, maybe that's it, right? That's what you're trying to accomplish. That's the vision, right? Your culture is how you treat one another and behave while you're accomplishing that mission. Specifically, like family rules. And the more you can. I found the ones that have the best workplace culture are the ones that say, you know, we're a little bit maniacal about, in our case, at our company, responsiveness, we try and get back to people crazy fast. And that makes us a little weird because most people don't respond quickly. It's one of the top H to H skills we uncovered in our study of the best candidates. And you know, it means there's some really competent, wonderful people that would drown in our culture because they. But we know it's our culture and we all kind of. It's not like we're all the same age or skin color or gender, but we are all the same in our behavior around our eight cultural values. So I think it's, are we healthy and how do we define the very unique way that we behave While we're trying to forward the mission.
- [19:26]
Dr. Rob Harder
Okay, well, I like this. And I'm going to make sure that's in the show notes so people can click on that and just learn a little bit more about that. Love the assessment tool that people can really figure out, okay, what is our culture? No one's perfect. And I like that no one has a perfect culture. But what is your culture and how can you make it better? That's fantastic. So, yeah, so that goes into the next question really is about improving culture. So say they take the tool and they learn. Wow, we're. Maybe we kind of have a toxic culture or just at least not a healthy culture. Far from perfect. What would be if you were to put your consultant hat on? What would be the first, most important steps that the board and. Or the executive directors is. Okay, we recognize our culture's not where it needs to be. What are the next few steps that organization should take?
- [20:08]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, yeah, there's just a, you know, old, old metaphor illustration for speakers that says you put the big rocks in the jar first. Right? You want to fill a jar with rocks, you put the big ones in first, then the smaller ones in the sand. That's how you fill it up. I would say you could go one of two paths, and there's not a right or wrong, in my opinion, but you could say, what is the biggest rock that we're getting right of these eight areas? What. What are we just really doing? Well, how do we add fuel to that? That's kind of the, the, you know, the book. Start with your strengths. It's like that, right? So the other way to look at things. And I think it kind of depends on your results. If you got a big rock saying, holy moly, no one trusts leadership in this organization, well, then that's what's got to be dealt with first. And the nice thing about strength scoring of the assessment is you. You see the baseline of organizations and you see where you measure against them. So you can see where your big rocks are, and you can decide you want to work on the. The good stuff or the stuff that's really hurting. And I think I can't stress how important retention is. I'd rather you never have to hire me. I'd rather you have the same fee. You know, because we have a generation. The millennials are the largest in the workforce now. And the volunteer force, they don't just switch jobs, they switch careers.
- [21:26]
Dr. Rob Harder
That's right. Good point.
- [21:28]
William Van der Blumen
You know, my son, who's, I guess a older gen Z, he's 30, he's made two complete career pivots. He worked for Deloitte Consulting, then he went to the FBI, and now he works for a software company that works with the Department of Defense. So, like, this is a new world and the default setting for millennials and Gen Z's is to move around every three, four, five years to something brand new. Well, what would happen if you focus so much on your culture that you could get six or seven years instead of four or five because the cost to replace a staff person, it takes time, it takes energy, you lose momentum. It takes money. And I just, I. The more you can do to keep your good people. Wow. I think I can't say enough.
- [22:17]
Dr. Rob Harder
That's excellent. Really, really important. And I'm glad you mentioned a couple of those things. There's no doubt there's big differences. I've had people on the show talk about that. With the millennial generation coming in now, how we lead needs to tweak a little bit. I think there's some common course leadership principles. But knowing the cultural mindset that millennials bring into your organization, like you just said, one example of the complete changing of not just a job, but the whole sector that they're involved with, the whole career has totally changed. So very, very good stuff.
- [22:44]
William Van der Blumen
Foreign.
- [22:47]
Dr. Rob Harder
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- [25:11]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, this is going to sound trite. I'm a verbal processor, so this isn't totally thought through, but I think, I think I would encourage a collaborative process for figuring out what needs to happen. What do I mean? I mean like at our company, you know, we're trying to improve our culture. We have like three times a year we get the whole company together and we shut down the business and just work on it, not in it. Right. And part of that is we take our own culture survey, we see where things are, we take comments. And out of all the stuff that we had to deal with a year ago, people wanted new desk chairs. I'm like, oh, really? I never ever would have thought of this. And my coo, who's brilliant and such a good change management, she said, okay, let's all pick what are the top three chairs. Now here's the budget so we can, you know, you can't go get crazy chairs if you're in a nonprofit or you work for nonprofits. But okay, we got the top three. She ordered one of each and had a two week sitting test. And people could just come sit. And this sounds like the longest, most drawn out. I mean, if you're a CEO, that's a get it done quick. This is painful.
- [26:22]
Dr. Rob Harder
Right, Right, Totally.
- [26:24]
William Van der Blumen
But we got the chair people liked and the next year the thing they're like, not only did you give us what we wanted, we were included in the process. Study after study. Is showing that. I hate to keep harping on it, but the heartbeat of your volunteer organization is going to be millennials and Gen Zs. And they are so different in how they prefer leadership. They want collaboration. A top down command and control just does not work. So I would say if you're trying to figure out what to do to make your people happier, ask your people what would make them happier. I think you'll be surprised if you're listening today, I think you'll be safe. Somebody out there is going, they want more money. Well, okay, maybe. And maybe you need to do a compensation study. We're forever doing those for nonprofits to say, are you paying enough so you can at least go to bed and say, yeah, we're paying competitive. That's not the issue. But I think you'll be surprised how that's really not the number one answer. It's not more pay. Might be more flexibility. It might be hybrid instead of fully in the office. It might be new office chairs. Who knows? But a regular check in and then the most important thing my co's taught me is when we have our get together where we shut everything down. Okay, guys, last time you told us you wanted this and here's what we did to get you that. And it's like eyes light up, brains turn on. I'm included. I'm a part of this conversation and it's worked fabulously well for us. And I think it might help some of you who are listening today.
- [27:54]
Dr. Rob Harder
Oh, I love that involvement and getting feedback and getting your staff engaged in the solution towards whatever the issue is you're looking at. And I know you're right. Any CEO, executive director is listening. That, that may drive you crazy, but is huge. Right? But it's huge, isn't it? And you saw it. And I think. And how interesting of all the things that they wanted, changing desk chairs.
- [28:16]
William Van der Blumen
You know the funny thing, funny thing, Rob, about that particular example, the person who really kind of led that conversation, we watched them as they led it and how they led the process. And we realized, oh my gosh, we've got a leader here.
- [28:30]
Dr. Rob Harder
Oh yeah.
- [28:31]
William Van der Blumen
We never would have uncovered that had we not opened room for collaboration. So it's like we did leadership development while we were getting new office chairs. Who could have thought that happened? But yeah, you'll start to identify your young people where maybe you don't have to hire somebody new. Maybe you are promoting from within.
- [28:49]
Dr. Rob Harder
Yeah, no, that's good. Well, you've kind of touched on this a little bit, but let Me ask maybe a slightly different way. Have there been particular initiatives or programs you have really recommended or utilized in your own organization that really encouraged employee engagement? You already gave us an example of, you know, really evaluating your culture and what people want. Is there anything else you found that was really helpful, either the organizations you're helping or your own organization?
- [29:11]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, we started in this book Culture Wins, which has been out a long time. I talked about every organization has to have a person that makes sure that culture is getting driven into the organization. I called it the Culture whip. You know, in Congress you have the whip that makes sure all the votes are in. And that was great. But then our team came up with a better idea and it was, this sounds horrible, but a culture team, a culture committee people, a person from each sector, all of our five basic teams, there's someone from each of those five teams on the culture team that then says, all right, how are we going to drive these values? How are we going to set up an event this month that might look like fun and games, but it's actually driving the value of ridiculous responsiveness or whatever value you're driving that month? And they've created a calendar so we know that in January we're pushing this. And there's articles that go out about that topic, there's recommended reading, there's discussions. I would say that's a big one second initiative. And I completely stole this from the Ritz Carlton. Not my idea at all. Okay. At the Ritz Carlton, at the start of every shift, everyone that works for the Ritz Carlton, from the CEO to the sous chef, they have a stand up meeting with their immediate team. And it's about five minutes long. And they go over, oh, it's Rob's birthday this week. Yay. You know, William's been at the company, he made it a whole year now. Yay. But then they say, all right, it's your turn, Rob, today. And Rob says, okay. And they all have their cultural values on a card in their credentials, like their name tag and all that. They have to carry it with them all the time. Pulls out the card of these gold standards is what they call their cultural values. And I'll use responsiveness. I saw Rob live out the value of ridiculous responsiveness this week when he was in the middle of doing a really deep dive report. And a new potential donor came through the pipeline and he stopped what he's doing. He got right back to him. They've already made a first time gift. And then he followed up. That's living out Our values. Way to go, Rob. Every shift change, this happens.
- [31:25]
Dr. Rob Harder
Wow, that's amazing.
- [31:28]
William Van der Blumen
Every single time. And they don't now we do it at every all staff meeting. We're not quite as maniacal as they are, but if otherwise it's just something you went on retreat and you wrote it down on paper and it kind of was a fun, you know, Camp High, you know, for lack of a better way of saying it.
- [31:44]
Dr. Rob Harder
That's a fantastic example. I love that. I'm gonna have to check out that book. I know we've, I've heard a lot about that culture they've created and obviously.
- [31:52]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, world, you hear something's ritzy. That adjective didn't exist until the hotel.
- [31:59]
Dr. Rob Harder
Good point. Really good point.
- [32:01]
William Van der Blumen
When your culture becomes an adjective, you've got it.
- [32:04]
Dr. Rob Harder
That's a good sign. That's a great sign. Yep. That's much better than a four letter word, you know. Well, let's say, let's talk about feedback. You know, feedback's critical and you already given me a couple examples where feedback has been played into this. Getting feedback in organization is so critical. Right. Whether it be in business or nonprofit, either way. So is there a best practice you've learned when it comes to, to collecting feedback from staff? You've already given us a couple examples. That rit Carlson one's a nice one of, in a sense, you're, you're creating these opportunities where feedback can happen. But is there other ways of intentionally saying to the staff, we want your feedback, give us your feedback. What is the most efficient, effective way you found?
- [32:43]
William Van der Blumen
Well, I think part of it's baking feedback into the culture of the organization. Like if you want a feedback driven culture, not everybody wants that. Right, but feedback driven culture, are you doing annual reviews for your staff and are they. 360 annual reviews. If you're not doing that, you're not telling people it's okay to speak up. Are you doing an annual survey that's anonymous where people can say in long form answers, here's what I love about here. Here's what you change about here. Like if you're not baking it into your business practices, then no one's going to speak up. And man, if you're a CEO listening today. Oh my goodness. When I was a young preacher, I had a guy come to me. He was the COO at an enormous corporation. You'd know it if I told you. And he was looking at taking a CEO position, which he'd always wanted to do it actually, I think it probably paid a Little less than a COO position. And he came to me, young preacher, to figure out what he ought to do. And I'm like, why are you. Okay, first of all, why are you coming to me? Secondly, why you've always wanted to be a CEO. What's keeping you from taking the job? And he said, william, have you never heard the saying, the first day you're the CEO is the last day you hear the truth? I didn't understand that for years. No one tells me the truth. I've got three people on our team that when I hired, I said, I'm hiring you to tell me the truth because most people won't. And the bigger your organization gets, the less percentage truth you get from people. So I think it's baking feedback into the culture. And if you're listening and you're a CEO and you think, oh, people tell me all the time, no, they don't. They don't tell you. There has to be something that's anonymous. It has to be baked into the day to day life of the culture.
- [34:32]
Dr. Rob Harder
So I like that. No, excellent. I think creating anonymity in the right way so you get the truth and the actual data that you need to get. Love that. Excellent example.
- [34:43]
William Van der Blumen
If you're a CEO saying our culture's great, everybody tells me everything's great. Don't believe it. Don't believe it for a second.
- [34:48]
Dr. Rob Harder
That's right. Got to do the Undercover Boss kind of approach. Right. Like that show a couple years ago. Yep.
- [34:54]
William Van der Blumen
Love it.
- [34:55]
Dr. Rob Harder
Okay. Well, one of the challenges I face, I know personally as a leader, is the balance between professional development on one hand, but also organizational efficiency on the other. How have you balanced that? When you, for example, you need, you know, just to get the job done right. You've got a mission. You got, you know, probably a non profit staff. Typically you want more staff. You don't have the budget to hire all the people you want. So you have to maximize the staff you have. But of course, you really want to make sure they're growing and you want to invest in that professional development. But how do you just balance that with the organizational efficiency that's constantly there that the board's going to ask about, your donors are going to ask about, what have you found to be a successful kind of middle ground there?
- [35:31]
William Van der Blumen
Well, this is a great question. And if you can figure it out, write a book and have the proceeds. Okay. You'll never need a. Because everybody, nobody's got it figured out. Right. For us, there are seasons where there is no work life Balance. There's just stuff to get done. My friends that run the relief organizations in Houston are living it right now. We just had a pretty horrible hurricane come through last month and I don't care what you're doing, we need to go muck houses like, and I don't care what your job title is, we got to do the work right now. You know, in the church world, it's Christmas and Easter. You're not going to see your family much then like I don't know what it is in your non profit, but what are the, the predictable seasons where you don't have time for anything except the job. Right. What is it? 42% of all contributions to non profits in the US happen in December. So, you know, if you're a fundraiser, that's not the time to do professional development. There are other reasons where, you know, our school vertical, where we work with a lot of schools, summertime is pretty dead and the sales guys for the schools almost lose their mind in the summer. Like no one's ever going to hire us again. This is it, it's over. Hang it up, we're done. No, no, no, no, no. Let's do professional development. So I think it's learning your organization. What are the rhythms where you can drop back and say, okay, this is a three day block where we usually don't get a lot of work. And then this is a season where we need to just not put any of that stuff on the calendar. It's a no fly zone. I think you can figure out those rhythms because it's not, I'm going to work from 8 to 4 and that's it. No, that's not nonprofit. Right. Especially if you're in any kind of rescue work, any kind of relief work. Identify those seasons where there are the low points. Perfect time for professional development. Excellent.
- [37:26]
Dr. Rob Harder
That's a great, good feedback. This has been such a fun conversation. Very insightful as well. Thank you for taking time to be on the show. So if people are listening, like I want to find out a little bit more about William or about your organization, where would you send them?
- [37:39]
William Van der Blumen
Yeah, well, at the risk of sounding like a total huckster, I would encourage you circling back to our very first question about H to H skills. Go find the research. We took that research project, which we were doing selfishly so we could identify talent quicker. We realized it's actually a set of habits that can be learned. So we turned it into a book. It's called B the Unicorn. So I would go to the unicornbook.com the unicornbook.com. once you're there, you'll find link backs to everything else about us. And one other place you could go, just go to vanderblumen.com you're like, are you crazy? Can you spell that? The only reason our company has my last name in it is because the SEO, the search engine optimization guys said, william, your last name is so messed up you can misspell it in Google 100 ways. And so just however you want to spell it, what you find on that site is not a sales pitch. You'll find about 4,500 free resources about building and running and keeping a great values driven team. And I think there's probably some things in there that'll help. So that's excellent.
- [38:48]
Dr. Rob Harder
Look forward to. Well, thank you again for sharing your insights. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for all you're doing. I know your company really does really support the nonprofit sector in a very significant way when it comes to recruiting and retention. So thank you for all you're doing.
- [39:00]
William Van der Blumen
Thanks Rob. It's great to be with you and I love what you're doing.
- [39:04]
Dr. Rob Harder
Hey friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to like subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great, great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website, nonprofit leadershippodcast.org well, thanks again for listening and until next time, keep making your world better. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Go to YouTube and look up Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. We'll see you there. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox Donor Box, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.