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Today, friend, I am going to give you a simple way to decide which fires you should personally handle and which ones you should step away from. Even, quite frankly, when it feels just a little bit uncomfortable to step away from them. If you're like most nonprofit executive directors, everything feels urgent. And when everything is a priority, you it is nearly impossible to focus on the work that actually moves your organization forward. Welcome to the Successful Nonprofits Podcast. I'm Dolph Goldenberg and I am a consultant, coach and confidant for leaders at small and large organizations across the country. I bring three decades of leadership and consulting experience building, growing, leading, and yes, repairing organizations. Today, friend, I am going to give you a simple way to decide which fires you should personally handle and which ones you should step away from, even, quite frankly, when it feels just a little bit uncomfortable to step away from them. Now, if you're like most nonprofit executive directors, everything feels urgent. And when everything is a priority, it is nearly impossible to focus on the work that actually moves your organization forward. At this point, I have done eight or nine interim chief executive engagements and I'd like to take you back to the start of one of my interim executive director engagements. When I walked into this organization, there were literally fires everywhere. They had gone through five or six CEOs in about five years. Their cash reserves had been spent down over that same period of time, and they were on the brink of insolvency. There were legal issues, there were, as you can imagine, serious leadership and staffing issues. And it was entirely possible that the organization was not going to make payroll in the very near future. And on top of what felt like some pretty big systemic issues, there were lots of day to day fires. Facility issues would pop up. There was a compliance issue with a funder that could jeopardize program funding next year. There were a lot of interpersonal conflicts between staff members at all levels. And of course, lots of staff were coming to me as the new leader, asking for something, hoping that I would say yes. And everything that was brought to me was brought with a sense of urgency. It all felt urgent as well. And that was the problem. It wasn't just the numbers of fires. It was that everything was being treated like a forest fire. There was no shared way for us to decide what mattered most in terms of what we should be tackling. So I created a simple rating system and I shared it first with the board before I shared it with the leadership team. We categorized every issue as some type of fire. There was false alarm, a match, dumpster fire, car fire, house fire, and a forest fire. And at each board meeting, I reported on these fires using those very categories. We did not spend time talking about matches or the dumpster fires. Those did not rise to the level of board conversations. My slide deck certainly made sure that they were aware of dumpster fires, but we don't need to talk about that at the board. Instead, we focused on the fires that mattered most in that moment. Car fires, house fires, and forest fires. And for the first time, we weren't just reacting to fires as people were bringing them to us. We were deciding which fires deserved our attention and what resources we should assign to putting those fires out. Here's the lesson, friend. When everything feels urgent, you need a simple way to triage your fires. And this one, honestly was the perfect system. Let me first start by talking about the matches. The vast majority of fires that people bring to us or that we see in our organization are actually just matches. A restroom that ran out of toilet paper, an angry client in the waiting room, or a staff member who is feeling underappreciated. Those are usually very small fires that are easily blown out by someone else, but they could start an even bigger fire if we left it alone. Keep in mind that almost all forest fires started because somebody struck a match. All team members in your organization should feel empowered to blow out the lit matches anytime they see them. There's no need to report the vast majority of match fires to the executive director. There just isn't. The next category of fire is the dumpster fire. If you've ever seen a fire in a dumpster, you know that it is a relatively self contained fire, but someone has to step up and put it out. A loud altercation in the lobby is an example of a dumpster fire. Gets a lot of attention, but probably just needs to be diffused. The person staffing your front desk or a manager needs to de escalate the situation and return everything to normal operations. Unless physical violence occurred, this situation should be reported to the staff member leading operations and doesn't need to be reviewed by me as the executive director. Dumpster fires, by the way, are an early leadership opportunity for non management staff as well as for first line managers. The next level of fire is car fire and car fires are dangerous because they contain combustible materials and innocent bystanders might get hurt. Car fires are best managed by first line managers and and middle managers and are once again a great learning and professional development opportunity. An interpersonal conflict between two colleagues is a great example of a car fire. The Two individuals can't work it out. And let me be clear, managers definitely need to set the expectation that their direct reports resolve interpersonal issues as best they can without management intervention. But if they can work it out, their supervisors can usually handle the situation. The chief executive really should not be notified and shouldn't be involved unless one of the colleagues is a direct report of the chief executive. Before we dive into the last two types of fires, let's take a quick break. If this episode is hitting close to home for you, I want you to know that this is the kind of work I do with nonprofit chief executives and their board. Through strategic planning, executive coaching, and board retreats, I help organizations get clearer about where they are going, what matters most, and what needs to change. I'm also there as your partner in implementing those changes. So if your nonprofit is at that kind of an inflection point, reach out to me @dolph successful nonprofits.com that's dolph successful nonprofits.com. Welcome back, friend. Before the break, we discussed three types of fires. Matches, dumpster fires and car fires. And we're going to talk about the last two now, house fires and car fires, because those are the two that really require our attention as a chief executive. House fires threaten a significant portion of the organization. Strained cash flow that might prevent funding payroll in a month is definitely a house fire. In most circumstances, house fires can be controlled and extinguished in a reasonable period of time. When I say reasonable, one to maybe two months. All senior leadership team members, though, need to work together and plan how we are going to extinguish that house fire. This is also a good time to bring in some trusted managers and ask them to to take part as well. The team that you assemble to tackle the house fire needs to project confidence. They need to put themselves at risk before other staff members. And of course, they need to keep the situation confidential unless it becomes clear, the fire just cannot be extinguished. And if you're leading a small organization and you are saying, dolph, I don't have a senior leadership team, then that's the point where you want to engage your board leadership. You need them to come in and help you put those house fires out. Of course, the most devastating kind of fire are forest fires, and they endanger the very existence of an organization. Forest fires are almost always a series of connected fires, and they didn't start overnight. If half your board and the majority of your senior leadership team resign, you're experiencing a forest fire, you're feeling that heat. And the first course of action with any forest fire is to control it and keep it from spreading. Only then can the board and staff leadership team develop a plan for actually putting the fire out. Of course, friend. This isn't just about how you prioritize your work as a chief executive. It's about how your organization learns to operate during that interim executive director engagement. When I first applied this fire framework, something interesting started to happen. Over time, staff began to understand not just the framework, but to understand which fires they needed to make me aware of. They also knew where they had the authority to just put a fire out on their own, like a match or even a dumpster fire. They knew where I needed to be informed, and also, more importantly, when I did not need to know. And frankly, they knew when someone else needed to be involved, whether that was a manager, a director, or myself. And the more that they understood that, the more time I could spend on the fires that actually required my attention. And that's when things began to change. When we better leveraged my time, we were able to redesign the organization's business model so that it could become truly sustainable. And in addition to that, we were also able to restructure the senior leadership team to make it more effective and resolve those non compliance issues with a funder. As you can imagine, all of that stabilized the organization so that it could actually go out and recruit an outstanding new chief executive who could start from a place of strength, not a place of, oh my gosh, I've got to catch up and put out all of these fires. There's something though, that I want to be really clear about. Had I continued to spend my time on matches and dumpster fires and even some car fires that were already under control, the people who brought those fires to me, they would have been happy for a brief moment, they would have gotten some attention and they would have known that I found their fire to be really important and critical. But because that would have divided my attention, the organization likely would not have survived. We would not have focused enough on the forest fires and the house fires. And that's the trade off. When everything feels urgent, nothing is urgent. So when everything feels urgent, you need a way to triage your fires. Quick reminder. The forest fires, those are the existential ones, the ones that require your leadership. The house fires, they're serious. They require leadership, often directly from you, but not always directly from you. Car fires, they're real. You can usually delegate them to to somebody else. Dumpster fires are messy, but can be handled by a team and a manager. And matches. Let's face it, matches are small and can be handled independently. Now, the one that I don't really think I talked about were the false alarms. A lot of people come with false alarms that are not real fires and the ability to not just communicate that, but to help people understand how to identify a false alarm so that they don't become that Chicken Little in your organization saying that the sky is always falling. There's one more key question that I want you to think about. When someone brings you a fire, ask yourself, is this a fire that only I can address? If it is, then you know you got to roll up your sleeves. If it's not, then you need to delegate it. I have found this firefighting framework to be so useful. I I've used it with other organizations, often in interim executive director engagements, but sometimes in my coaching work as well. Now, if you found this episode to be useful, there's two more I want you to consider downloading and listening to. The first is episode 277, make the most of youf Time with Shanice Miller. The second is episode 349, how to say no and Feel Good About It. Because part of stepping away from those fires is saying no to someone and letting them know that they can actually take care of that fire. That, my friend, that's the show for the week. I hope that you have gained some insight to help you and your nonprofit thrive. And of course I say this in every episode. I'm not an accountant nor an attorney, and neither I nor the consulting practice provide tax law, legal or accounting advice. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied on for tax, legal or accounting advice. Please. If that is what you need, find a licensed qualified person in your region and get the counsel you need.