What's Your Operating Model with Leslie MacKrell

Summary

Podcast Summary: "What’s Your Operating Model?" with Leslie MacKrell

Successful Nonprofits Podcast
Host: Dolph Goldenburg
Guest: Leslie MacKrell, Partner at The Bridgespan Group
Date: October 29, 2024
Main Article Discussed: “Operating Models: How Nonprofits Get from Strategy to Results” (Bridgespan.org)

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Dolph Goldenburg sits down with Leslie MacKrell from The Bridgespan Group to demystify one of the most under-discussed drivers of nonprofit success: the operating model. The discussion is designed for nonprofit leaders grappling with strategic growth, organizational alignment, and the practical steps between vision and on-the-ground results. Leslie brings insights from her research and consulting experience, especially her recent article explaining how nonprofits can translate strategy into tangible outcomes by developing and optimizing their operating models.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bridging Strategy and Results Through the Operating Model

• Leslie’s Definition:
  "Your operating model is the thing that determines whether the big strategy you have can actually be converted day by day to results." (02:24)
• Why Operating Models Matter:
  Many organizations get stuck, not due to lack of effort or commitment, but from breakdowns in structure, accountability, and decision-making as they scale or pursue new strategies.

2. Project ECHO Case Study: Operating Model in Action (04:12 – 07:09)

• Example of Bold Scale:
  Project ECHO, aiming to reach billions internationally, realized their existing operating model couldn’t support dramatic growth.
• Key Insight on Distributed Decision-Making:
  “One of the big operating model questions Project Echo had to answer is…how much can we distribute decision making authority in our organization?” (06:03, Leslie)
• Lesson:
  Scaling impact often demands shifting from centralized to distributed models to avoid bottlenecks and empower local action.

3. Prerequisites for a Successful Operating Model (07:19 – 10:43)

• Mary Poppins Wisdom:
  “Well begun is half done.” Leslie stresses the need for clarity and specificity in strategy before designing an operating model.
• Common Hurdles:
  Leaders may be misaligned on key goals, or set vague targets due to internal disagreements or pressure from external trends.

4. The Operating Model Framework: Four Key Elements (11:03 – 26:52)

a. Structure and Accountabilities

• Definition:
  Organizational design, roles, decision-making authority, and clarity across leadership levels.
• Quote:
  “We would think of structure and accountabilities as very much necessary, but not sufficient.” (13:01, Leslie)
• Cross-Departmental Clarity:
  "Do you have big decisions in your organization that require collaboration between leaders of two departments? Is it clear who makes what decisions?" (13:41, Leslie)

b. Management Systems

• Practical Example:
  As nonprofits double in size, oversight and shared measures can lag, making resource allocation and initiative tracking difficult.
• Quote:
  “Do we have a shared set of key performance measures for this organization?” (15:42, Leslie)
• Restructuring Teams and Processes:
  Real-life example of resetting executive teams and standardizing planning to ensure decisions align with overall strategy.

c. Ways of Working

• Culture & Norms:
  Encompasses values, behaviors, and, crucially, decision-making disciplines.
• Quote:
  "Organizations are comprised of people. You interact with each other all day long, and you need some rules of the road for that…" (19:17, Leslie)
• Decision Clarity:
  Leslie emphasizes being explicit about how decisions get made (directive, consensus, participative) and aligning those processes organization-wide.
  “If your organization can't make decisions well, if they can't make them in time, if they can't make them without heartache, it’s very, very difficult to get good work done.” (20:48, Leslie)

d. Key Performance Enablers

• Definition:
  Systems such as talent, learning, partnerships, and IT — prioritized for what the strategy most needs.
• Lesson:
  Don’t aim for best-in-class in every area; determine where excellence versus “good enough” matters for your unique strategy.
• Quote:
  "Let’s not make the generic best-in-class versions of these things. Let’s really, really prioritize and be okay with being good enough in other areas…” (26:52, Leslie)

5. Interconnectedness of Model Elements

• Dependencies:
  "If all you do is work on one [element], you end up with some kind of weird anomaly of an organization.” (17:14, Dolph)
• Implementation Tip:
  Consider the knock-on effects—improving one area (like the executive team) may require follow-through in others (like decision authority).

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Memorable Quotes & Practical Advice

• On Growth and Change Signals:
  “Really dramatic growth plans…are one of those lightbulb moments [to] take it slow here and figure out if our operating model needs to change.” (05:30, Leslie)

• On Decision-Making Dysfunction:
  “Every year it feels like we make this [key decision] for the very first time…last year, proximity to headquarters was important, but this year, availability of transportation.” (23:04, Leslie)

• On Clarifying Roles:
  “I thought I was making the decision. Oh, you thought you were making the decision. Oh, no wonder our email traffic has been so strained…” (23:46, Leslie)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Defining the Operating Model: 02:20–03:59
• Project ECHO & bold goals: 04:12–07:09
• From clarity to implementation: 07:19–10:43
• Framework Elements Overview: 11:03–12:49
• Structure & Accountabilities details: 12:49–14:19
• Management Systems: 14:55–17:14
• Interconnectedness of systems: 17:14–18:26
• Ways of Working (decision disciplines): 18:38–22:09
• Performance Enablers: 25:07–26:52

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Notable Moment: Off-the-Map Question

[27:23 – 32:57]

• Leslie holds the (informal) Bridgespan title of “Fastest Suitcase Packer”—a badge of pride from their team’s quirky “Consulting Olympics.”
• Packing tip: “Get very low to the ground…just sort of scoop [items] in, Bulldozer method into the suitcase.” (29:47, Leslie)
• Travel hacks exchanged: small binder clips are multi-use wonders for conference/meeting travel.

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Resources & Further Reading

• Article: “Operating Models: How Nonprofits Get from Strategy to Results” (search ‘Nonprofit Operating Model’ or find it at Bridgespan.org)
• Bridgespan’s Executive Team Effectiveness resources
• Connect with Leslie and Bridgespan: Bridgespan.org

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Final Takeaway

Operating models are the often-missing link between great nonprofit strategies and actual, measurable impact. By auditing and intentionally refining their structure, management systems, ways of working, and enablers—with clear alignment to strategy—nonprofits position themselves to achieve ambitious, mission-driven results at scale.

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For busy nonprofit executives: Leslie’s advice—don’t treat operating models as a one-off org chart exercise. Make them an ongoing, inclusive conversation that adapts as your organization grows.

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(This summary skips advertisements and show intro/outro material. For full article links and episode notes, visit SuccessfulNonprofits.com.)

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Successful Nonprofits podcast. I'm your host, Dolph Goldenberg. We have all been there. Your team is working harder than ever, and there is no question of their dedication, their heart, and their commitment. But no matter what you do, the organization just seems to be stuck at a standstill. Well, lucky for you, that's where this episode's guest, Leslie McCrell, comes into play. Leslie is a partner at the Bridgespan Group, an organization that offers advisory services and research to improve the impact and sustainability of the social sector. Her work has included nonprofit stability and growth strategies, nonprofit network analysis, philanthropic initiative design and grant making strategies, as well as performance measurement. At Bridgespan, she has helped all kinds of nonprofit and foundation clients from a wide variety of of fields and disciplines. Before her days at Bridgespan, she held a strategic planning position at Ms. Foundation for Women, a national philanthropy focused on empowering women's leadership for social justice. And recently, Leslie co authored the article Operating How Nonprofits Get From Strategy to Results. And I will share with you listeners that it's that article that kind of put Leslie on my radar and made me say, we gotta get Leslie on the podcast and learn more about this. So, Leslie, welcome to the podcast.

[B]

Thanks, Dolph. Thanks for having me.

[A]

Now, in podcasting school, which I never went to and never graduated from, they taught me that I should never ask a guest to drop all their candy in the lobby by revealing the secret to what we're going to talk about in the first five minutes. But I'm going to break that rule. Share with us the secret, Leslie. How do nonprofits get from strategy to results?

[B]

The short answer would be carefully and with intention, I'd say, but your question is very seasonal. We just had trick or treating in our building with my toddler son going up and down the halls, dropping a lot of candy on the way. So I don't mind answering your question here. We at Bridgepan exist essentially to help organizations and leaders achieve social change impact. So we are obsessed with this question of how you figure out and and

[C]

remove your barriers to impact.

[B]

And what we have observed over the

[C]

years is that it's often one's operating model that is the barrier to impact. Let me back up a little bit and say why I've chosen those words of operating model. Every organization has an operating model. It's sort of the set of decisions you make about how you're structured, how you hold each other accountable, who does what jobs, what your key performance measures are, how you behave with each other, how your systems are oriented, all of These really common sense things that we often think about one at a time are actually part of this living, breathing mechanism called your operating model. And your operating model is the thing that determines whether the big strategy you have can actually be converted day by day to results. And sometimes small organizations can sort of stumble through if your operating model is imperfect or if there's some pieces out of alignment because you know each other and you can get work done informally, and you sort of work out the kinks as you go along. But if your work has any scale or any complexity, if you're working in multiple locations, if you're growing, if you're changing, then you really do need to get your operating model right to be effective, because the informal ways don't really cut it. And so what we learned and then published in that article and what you can find by searching nonprofit operating models is how we could help organizations think about what is your operating model, what does it look like today? What does your strategy need it to be? And how can you make some tweaks so that the work you need to get done with the great people you have can be done more easily, more productively to drive results?

[A]

In that article, if I recall correctly, you talk about a project. I think it's Project Echo, and they do telementoring with physicians worldwide. Can you share a little bit about how they looked at their operating model?

[B]

Yeah, I can share a bit about Project Echo and then perhaps examples that are similar in our work. So Project Echo, if you go to the piece, was looking to grow really, really dramatically. Right. And this is often a really good

[C]

time to look at your operating model.

[B]

It's not about 5% more next year,

[C]

5% more the year after that, but

[B]

we want to go from 100,000 to a million, or we want to go from one country to two or three or four. And those real steps, step changes and growth are when we find that organizations need to look at your operating model, because the likelihood that you can do three, four, five times more than you do today with the same operating model is just really unlikely.

[A]

And if I can jump in real quick, gosh, this is maybe 50 or 60 episodes ago, we had Kathleen Kelly Janis on the podcast talk about her book Social Success Startup, and she actually talked about how if you come up with what she refers to, I think, as a big, bold goal. So you. So if you come up with this big, bold goal, and I think in Project Echo's case, I think it's like. And I forgot the exact number, but I think it's like reach a billion or 2 billion patients worldwide, that then you have to look at your entire model and figure out how you're going to do it, because your current model is not sufficient to do that. So I love that you're talking about that, that you really kind of an overhaul of your operating model probably starts with doing something that you currently think is impossible because of the way you're operating.

[B]

Yeah, that's one of those, you know, there's three or four light bulb moments, right, in operating model where you say, this is a signal to us, we better take it slow here and figure out if our operating model needs to change. And really dramatic growth plans, which we're all in the business of dreaming up, of course, are one of those light bulb moments. And so I'll just give one example from the Project Echo story, which is, as you described, they were going to, you know, how could we actually influence the trajectory, the medical trajectory of a billion people in the world, rather than hundreds of thousands or a million? And. And they did this through this leverage model of training physicians and other medical

[C]

specialists to provide technical support to others who, by virtue of their location, perhaps, or their own training, didn't have the specialized expertise they needed to be useful to their patients. And so one of the big operating model questions Project Echo had to answer is, how much can we distribute decision making authority in our organization? Because you can well imagine that the same person or same team of management people who could manage to make most of the big decisions for an organization trying to serve a million couldn't possibly do so for a billion. And it would have meant a much slower growth path if they insisted on tightly controlled decision making about everything. And so Project Echo went throughout all parts of their operating model and said, how can we make this as distributed as possible? How can we unlock the dependence on the center? Right. So that teams working in locations far away from headquarters could see an opportunity, make a good decision about it, and expand their work. So they really wanted to eliminate any barriers to fast growth. And there was all different ways in the operating model that they could contribute to that goal.

[A]

Once you start to think about your or as you start to think about your operating model, what are those next steps and actually really moving to results and implementation.

[B]

So, Adolph, you ask, how can organizations, what should they do? Right. If you think you have an operating model challenge, how do you fix it? And what I would say there is, this is where maybe my Mary Poppins comes out a little bit. Mary Poppins says, well begun is half done. And that's often what we find with operating models as well. We frequently talk to clients who say, we have a great new strategy, we just need the operating model to deliver it. And often what we find is there's actually a bit of work still to be done on the strategy specifically to make sure that it is granular enough to build a good model around. Because often the choice points you're making are rather specific in your operating model. It's not we want to grow how, but rather, we need to grow here, or we need to grow this, not that, or we need to grow this fast, or we need to grow for this funding stream. We need to grow with these capabilities. Right. So answering those questions, you know, sort of ticking through the big boxes of your strategy. What's your definition of success? Where will you be geographically?

[C]

How quickly do you need to grow? What will be your funding mix? What are the big decisions you'll make? Then you start to get a picture of, okay, I know what this operating model needs to deliver for me. Now I can go look at the different parts of my operating model, which are your structure and accountabilities, your key behaviors, what management team do you have and what decision authorities they have, how you organize your talent systems. You can do that with this sort of performance requirements of your strategy in mind. For example, you might have a, you

[B]

know, say, well, gosh, we need to

[C]

have a learning system that's part of the operating model. But you say, okay, well, what kind of learning system do we need? Do we need one that will help us standardize our work across multiple locations and geographies, or do we need one that's going to help us innovate on our work? Do we need one that should be organized primarily by the programs we run, or do we need one that cuts across those programs so people can learn from each other? Right. And the answer to that comes from what your strategy needs to deliver.

[B]

And that clarity can sort of get

[C]

you well down the road in terms of thinking about where do you want to spend your time tweaking the operating model.

[A]

And so what are some of the barriers or hurdles that organizations experience in trying to get that clarity?

[B]

Yeah, of course, as so many things are easier said than done on the clarity.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Part of it comes from, honestly, have you considered, is this a real change moment for you? And if so, have you invested sufficient leadership time in banging out the hard

[C]

parts of the strategy?

[B]

When a strategy isn't quite clear enough, sometimes it's simply a matter of, we didn't sit with it long enough to get down to the level. Sometimes it signals that there's been some misalignment that leaders haven't had the tools to or haven't wished to really get underneath with this question of how quickly should we grow? Well, you know, if you ask our chief programs officer, he says tomorrow. If you ask the chief finance officer, she says never. And so we sort of settled with something in between that we felt was, you know, relatively vague, and we thought we would tackle that down the road when push came to shove. Sometimes it's misalignment, sometimes that the, you know, the push for some big aspect of your strategy is coming from outside the house, if you will. You feel called to respond to circumstances around you, but they're not quite your circumstances yet, and you don't understand them perhaps as well as you wished. And so you're hoping you can set a rather vague North Star and sort of take things as they come.

[A]

Got it. And so I know when you kind of outline the concept of the operating model framework, you also talked about four elements that are really critical in figuring out as part of your framework. Could you say a little bit? And the first one, and it's one that I've always just found, just so key is structure and accountability. Can you say a little bit about that?

[B]

Yeah, of course. And so for those that are listening, firstly, thank you for listening. And if you're listening to this somewhere, you can pull up the article again, just search nonprofit operating model. I say that because there's a couple of graphics in there that really depict

[C]

this framework, which could be helpful for you.

[A]

And real quick, Leslie, I'm glad you said that. I'll share with you. This is completely anecdotal based on people that reach out to me, but I think the vast majority of our listeners listen on a commute, either in a car or in a subway. And most subways, I think New York. Whenever I'm in New York, I know that's where you live. I'm always frustrated that in the station I can get wireless, and then three seconds later, when we pull out of the station, we can. So for those that are in the subway or that are driving, check it

[B]

out later, completely check it out later. And go with me on a journey of the mind, if you will, to visualize this. But we talk about four major elements

[C]

of your operating model, and I'll just

[B]

say what they are briefly, and then we'll go where you went, Dolph, which is the structure and accountabilities and the four major Elements of your operating model are a, your structure and accountabilities, what the big units of your business are, what work they do, who leads them, your management systems. So what management tables do you have and what processes do you use to sort of govern the organization day by day? Your ways of working. So, behaviors, norms, how do you make decisions together? How do you establish the boundaries of what professionalism looks like in your organization? What are the most important behaviors given your strategy? And then these key performance enablers, things like your talent systems, your learning systems, your it, the way you have external partnerships, and how you orient those all, not just for sort of generic good practice, as in, we should have performance reviews, you know, everyone should.

[C]

But rather, what does our performance system need to do so that we develop

[B]

people as they need to be developed for our strategy?

[C]

And so, Dolph, you asked a question

[B]

about structure and accountabilities, and I would love to hear more about why that

[C]

one popped for you.

[B]

And it's interesting, for us, in operating

[C]

model world, we would think of structure

[B]

and accountabilities as very much necessary, but not sufficient. Right? And so when we talk to folks about organizational design, sometimes the conversation starts by hearing, I need a new org chart or I need some new senior leadership. And often that is part of the challenge.

[C]

But there's a lot that can be

[B]

done around structure that can make your

[C]

operating model perform well. And I'll just give one example.

[B]

So one of the places we often spend a lot of time in operating model design is, okay, so you have your major teams or your major departments. They may or may not need to change. We can talk about that, but let's

[C]

talk about what happens between them.

[B]

Do you have big decisions in your

[C]

organization that require collaboration between leaders of two departments?

[B]

Is it clear who makes what decisions? Are the places where those folks need to connect? Are they working well?

[C]

Are they well supported?

[B]

Or is there friction? Let's talk about the accountabilities that each

[C]

team member, each senior team member has.

[B]

And do they accidentally overlap and cause some bad blood between folks? And so even if you've got sort of the right names and the right teams, sometimes they can't work well together

[C]

because of other behaviors you have or areas where you failed to clarify.

[B]

And I'm curious what caught your eye about that as sort of the.

[C]

The first place to start, because for

[B]

us, it is one of those foundational pieces too.

[A]

So speaking of dropping the candy in the lobby, I didn't plan on us talking about all four, so I just started with the first One that was listed in the article.

[B]

Perfect.

[A]

So how's that for just being completely transparent, Leslie?

[B]

I love it.

[A]

So this is probably a great way then for us to segment over to management systems, which, you know, frankly, I kind of. Because I do think you're right. I think a lot of nonprofits, they've got the org chart. They have the sense of, you know, we have roles and responsibilities, we know what everybody does. But then they don't always have the management systems necessary to make sure that that org chart is working as well as it could toward achieving the goal.

[B]

Yeah. So I can give a couple of

[C]

examples here if that would be helpful.

[B]

Teams who found out that part of their answer lay in the management system

[C]

part of operating model.

[B]

So I'm working with an organization now that had doubled their size in the last five years, and they started several new initiatives, all that had started off rather small, but then become big deals in the organization. And this was resulting in several problems

[C]

for them from the management system perspective.

[B]

The first was that their senior management team didn't really have sufficient oversight over

[C]

all of those initiatives.

[B]

And so each initiative was sort of growing in its own way, but sort of disconnected. And they wanted to sort of allocate resources across them, but didn't even quite understand sort of what were the needs. And so one. One of the things they needed to

[C]

do was look into the management system box and say, firstly, do we have a shared set of key performance measures for this organization? Can we reestablish what we think good looks like for us in our overall strategy so that when we consider each initiative, we can sort of lay it against what our overall North Star is and say, okay, therefore, this becomes more or less important, or we actually need to shape the direction of this initiative

[B]

a little bit so that it contributes

[C]

to the whole better. So that's sort of what matters on performance measures.

[B]

The second was that they actually decided to reset their executive team so that they had the right people around the table to have enough information and have enough decision authority to make decisions about all of these new pieces which had kind of grown up to be meaningful parts of the organization. And then they standardized the planning approaches

[C]

that all of those pieces use so

[B]

that when it came budget time, for example, each initiative was coming to the table with the same sort of standardized approach and the same set of information. And that new table, with all the right folks in this new process, could then actually differentially allocate resources across those initiatives in a way that helps the whole feel more consistent and part of

[A]

What I love is because I know you also talk about how these are interrelated. And there's some things that I heard you say that I'm like, in my head I might throw that over to structure. But you're right, they're all interrelated. It's like when you talked about how they changed up the management team a little bit. And that's probably part org structure org chart as well. So I do kind of love that, that if all you do is work on one, you end up with some kind of weird anomaly of an organization.

[B]

I think so. And I think there are dependencies among them that are really important to name, even if you don't have to fix all of them at the same time. And that's another part of the operating model magic, if you will, that simply putting on your operating model hat starts a different conversation about any one thing. So for example, I have an organization that needed to upgrade their sort of talent management system. And they were trying to say, okay, how are we going to figure out what good looks like here?

[C]

And we know that we need to have a new level of mid management and we have to grow people into those roles. That's part of our strategy because we intend to grow the organization. We need more internal talent.

[B]

And one of the questions they asked

[C]

is, well, how much do we need talent to be able to work across our programs rather than just within? And so for that they went to not only the strategy but also sort of structure and accountability to say, okay, how independently are these teams operating?

[B]

Really?

[C]

Really? And how practical is it that we could assume people could cross pollinate?

[B]

And how important is it that the

[C]

expertise travel from these programs one to the other? And where they landed was actually not very much at all. Although we like to think about our work being connected from a day to day perspective, we really shouldn't design a whole talent system around the need to float people across teams.

[A]

Got it. And so let's hit on ways of working, which to me sounds as I read it, it's almost frankly, organizational culture, types of things like, you know, what are our values, how do we lead, how do we work?

[B]

I would say it is those things and more. And when we work with clients on this piece, often what we're looking for is the few targeted things that would really boost performance. Right. Because you don't want operating models are

[C]

still at a fairly high level.

[B]

And it's not an employee engagement initiative per se.

[C]

It's not a culture change initiative per se.

[B]

It's not in and of Itself, for

[C]

example, a diversity and inclusion initiative per se.

[B]

It's not a remote working policy. It's not those things.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And it also sounds like it's not a we need to fix Bob, our cfo, because that's all of our problems.

[B]

No, there's sometimes those conversations come up

[C]

and we take a different path with those conversations. It's really.

[B]

It tries to take the most practical,

[C]

pragmatic approach to questions like this, which is organizations are comprised of people.

[B]

You interact with each other all day long, and you need some rules of

[C]

the road for that so that you

[B]

can collaborate with a minimum of friction and really prioritize the ways you need to be together for your strategy, not just because it's nice to have. So one of the big things we

[C]

talk about in ways of working is your decision disciplines.

[B]

And if decision disciplines is. I know it's a sort of a phrase of art, but if thinking about how you make decisions, well, feels useful to you, please just Google bridge span decisions, decision behaviors. There's plenty there.

[C]

The heart of it is that actually organizations should be much more explicit than they are typically inclined to be about how decisions get made. Right.

[B]

So you can think about a consensus approach.

[C]

Right, for example, or a really participative

[B]

approach where folks have the chance to say input, but then someone does decide,

[C]

or a more directive approach.

[B]

And each of those decision styles has their own day.

[C]

There are appropriate circumstances for each one.

[B]

But what we observe is that organizations

[C]

tend to naturally have one, but are

[B]

a little bit inconsistent in it. So you may aspire to be a consensus organization, for example, but it's consensus when everybody agrees. But when it's not consensus, everybody knows

[C]

who brings the hammer down.

[B]

Right? And getting okay with talking about those

[C]

things is really important because your strategy, how you execute your strategy day to day is. Is honestly just decision after decision after decision. And if your organization can't make decisions, well, if they can't make them in

[B]

time, if they can't make them without

[C]

heartache, it's very, very difficult to get good work done. Let's talk a lot about decisions in that box.

[A]

And I'm so glad you're talking about that because I will also share with you that a lot of the organizations that I run into that are struggling so often there's not through across the organization, there is not alignment on how decisions are made. And so the board thinks about it one way, senior leadership team thinks about it another, middle management a third, and then your direct service team, frankly, a fourth, and then a lot of the Reasons that the organization either is not moving forward or literally moving backward is because there's this ongoing struggle of essentially each group saying, well, we can't abide by this decision and here's why.

[B]

Yeah, and there's complexity there, right. It intersects with questions we're all asking ourselves about what is the changing way of the workplace? What does it mean to be more authentically sharing power in organizations? What does it mean to be a leader in today's time? So it's not an easy answer, right? But what we would say with our operating model hats on, is that you need to really honestly take a look

[C]

at yourselves as an organization and say,

[B]

what do we need to be able

[C]

to do well here? And decisions is typically one of them.

[B]

Actually talk about those types of decisions and say, how do we intend to transparently approach these in the future so

[C]

that it's clear to everyone who matters

[B]

how these decisions get made, what their role is or isn't, and that we

[C]

make them as objective as possible.

[B]

The other piece that goes along with this, which we, again, to your point about the connectivity we see a little bit more in the structure and accountabilities,

[C]

is for really specific decisions.

[B]

Let's actually take the time to spell those out, right? So if you happen to look at our graphic later on, you'll see a big green circle in the middle which

[C]

says key decisions and capabilities. And the reason that's right in the middle is because if your operating model

[B]

is working well, you can make your key decisions when you need to make

[C]

them with clarity, and you can deliver your key capabilities just as you need to without a lot of heartache. So sometimes we actually take a key decision, I'll use, I don't know, a direct service program, for example, and say, what is one of the key decisions you have to make repeatedly? And well, one example could be, gosh, we have to decide what school partners we're going to place our after school programs in. And we have to make that decision every single year. And every single year it feels like we make it for the very first time.

[B]

And you know, last year proximity to

[C]

our headquarters was important, but this year availability of transportation was important. And the year before that quality of partnership was important then. So actually like writing that decision on a piece of paper and say, okay, school partnerships, let's talk it through. Who plays what role? What matters? How can we know if we're doing well? How can we track our performance? Performance. And doing that for a few of the really biggest pain points can get

[A]

you a long ways it's interesting because I think those organizations that every year they're having to try to figure out the decision, that's often a really painful decision as well. Like, everyone goes through a lot of pain to make that decision because they're starting from scratch every single time. Like, why do we argue about this every year?

[B]

Every organization has those examples of sort of, didn't we just have this conversation? Or I'm sorry, I thought I was making the decision. Oh, you thought you were making the decision. Oh, no wonder our email traffic has been so strained on this topic. So, you know, small things can make a big difference. I don't at all want to leave

[C]

the impression that an operating model is

[B]

a big thing and it's all or nothing.

[C]

It's definitely not.

[B]

But putting your operating model hat on when looking at any one part of

[C]

your organization can lead to new answers.

[B]

It can say, gosh, you know, in a vacuum, I might have been inclined to just change this or that, but now I see there's some connection here. And we can make this whole system work better if we're a little bit attentive to sort of the knock on effects. You know, you're going to make a new executive team where you're going to change the composition of your executive team. And Bridgepan actually has a lot of great resources on executive team effectiveness. So if you're in a lot of meetings with your executive team and you're not quite sure what they're for, I would encourage you bridge span executive team effectiveness. But I've worked with teams who said, okay, actually this is really wonderful. Now we've got the team humming.

[C]

The team is going to make all these decisions.

[B]

And somewhere in the back of the room someone says, well, I think I used to make that decision by myself. Right? So thinking about what are the knock on effects of improving one piece and really trying to track them back to make sure you've cleaned up all the pieces along the way.

[A]

Well, before we get to the off the map question, let's talk about enablers and then we're going to move over to off the map.

[B]

Okay?

[C]

Okay.

[B]

So for enablers, this box is perhaps

[C]

the broadest in the framework.

[B]

And the spirit of it is we all have these aspects of our business that are pretty common sense, they're pretty generic. Every organization needs to have performance management. Every organization needs to learn from itself somehow. Every organization has partners of one kind or another. Every organization has processes that they repeat month after month, year after year.

[C]

In an operating model context, we're not Trying to make each of those perfect. We're not saying you're going to have

[B]

the best talent management system in the world, you're going to have the best

[C]

learning system in the world. But rather we're really asking with our strategy lens, what's the most important thing you need from these systems? Do you need from your learning system to be able to figure out what

[B]

works quickly and scale it to the

[C]

rest of your sites? Because part of your strategy requires you to grow really quickly and with the best possible programming?

[B]

Okay, then there's probably a lot of nice to have things in your learning

[C]

system that fall down the list, but this piece about I just figured out

[B]

something amazing that works.

[C]

I need to be able to tell the rest of my organization very quickly becomes a priority. Or partnerships.

[B]

There's a lot of nice things we

[C]

could do to have good partnerships, formal or informal. But if part of your strategy, for example, is partnering with advocacy organizations to take what you've learned in direct service and get it into policy work, you probably have to invest a great deal more in your partnerships than an equivalent organization who doesn't intend to have an advocacy play does. So the spirit of enablers is let's not make the generic best in class versions of these things. Let's really, really prioritize and be okay with being good enough in other areas, because there are few things we have to do really, really well.

[A]

Got it. All right. Well, Leslie, I gotta save time for the off the map question. I think I got a great one for you. So, listeners, I think, you know, we do a little bit of research on all of our guests and, and sometimes we stalk them a little bit. And I have heard that Leslie is a remarkably competitive person and that there's some, maybe some friendly competition that goes on in the Bridgespan office. And so I understand that you are the champion in your office. What is your champion title?

[B]

Of all the work I've done at Bridgepan, this is maybe of what I am most proud. I am the current title holder for fastest suitcase packer. And maybe 30 seconds of context as to how would one even know if one were the fastest suitcase packer? And it tells you perhaps a little bit about the Bridgepan DNA too, which is even when we try not to be competitive, there's a spirit of sort of seeking the best, seeking the highest impact that we can't get away from. So the context here is Bridgespan has

[C]

in the last couple of years opened offices outside the United States.

[B]

And part of the way we have

[C]

prioritized our operating model. And our ways of working is to move away from being so us centric in some of our scheduling.

[B]

So not all the time. You know, sometimes our colleagues in Mumbai

[C]

are still on the phone very, very late at night with us. But in moments we have tried to bridge the time divide. And so this was an example of all of the colleagues in the US for Bridgespan staying at the office very late at night so that our colleagues in Mumbai could participate in a company wide meeting at a time that was more palatable to them.

[B]

So great example of a ways of

[C]

working that was from a global strategy commitment.

[B]

And the question is, of course, how do you fill the time between 6:30 and 10:00 clock in the evening when

[C]

this all was gonna happen? So we devised consulting Olympics with a

[B]

whole set of really interesting games. One was, okay, send someone into a room and put a random set of slides behind them and you know, they don't know what they are until they turn around and they see. It's this crazy collection of things that you have to pretend you can present, you know, with coherence. Slide karaoke. One was, you know, here's a list of airport codes, obscure airport codes from all over the world. And you and your team get together and identify, you know, what are the long form names of these airport codes. So, you know, it's sort of, we can't help being sort of constitutionally nerdy in that way. And then one of this, one of these events was a collection of random things, large and small, bulky, fragile, et cetera, that you had to pack into a carry on suitcase as quickly as possible. And so that's where I chose to focus my unique talents. And I would say my secret. I know, Dolph, you do a lot of traveling, so be curious what your techniques are too. But for me, what I prioritized was getting really low to the ground. So not worrying about looking pretty while packing the suitcase, but rather just get very low to the ground, very close

[C]

to all the objects that need to

[B]

be packed and just sort of scoop them in Bulldozer method into the suitcase. So I don't know how well they fared on the other side, but I applied my consulting toolkit and said, that

[C]

is not part of the assessment of this exercise.

[B]

What's part of the assessment is getting them in, not getting them out. And so that's how I think I've managed to keep hold of the title.

[A]

So a couple things. First of all, what was your time?

[B]

I don't know. And it's hard without the I wish I could show you all the data. Right. So, you know, what does eight seconds mean in a vacuum? But I think it was sub 10. Like, sub 10 seconds.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. That's really impressive.

[B]

It wasn't pretty, right? It was not pretty.

[A]

So, yeah, like you, I travel in an order in amount, which is one of those I want. Cause I wanted to know what your technique is. And I think this is probably going to be released in the spring. We're recording this in early November. So I'm adjusted about 100,000 miles. I think I'll hit somewhere about 125,000 miles of flight time this year. And that's actually on my primary airline. I've done a couple on American, so I don't count those because they don't count toward anything other than the fact that I had to get somewhere. Sad but true. But something for me, like, I don't know. How about you? I'm all about the packing cubes. I love the packing cubes. But then the other thing is I actually. I just have. I have a travel set of everything. And so when I get home, stuff goes in the laundry, if it has to go in the laundry, and then it just gets packed again. So it's just. It's ready to go. So the night before or the morning of, I'm not like, I gotta pack. I gotta pack. It's all just there. But that's honestly that. But it also means I do a lot of ironing when I get there because, you know, something might be folded for a few days, for two days before it, before it ends up at the destination.

[B]

I really like that tip. I've also gravitated towards a very. A very indistinguishable wardrobe, so that, you know, whatever happens to end up in there, it's never going to be unmatchable. Which is another. Saves you when the shirt you grabbed in the dark isn't quite the shirt

[C]

you thought you grabbed in the dark.

[A]

And so I may rely on you. I'm thinking about doing a blog post. You know, a lot of people in the nonprofit world don't travel every week for work, but they do two, three, four conferences a year. So I've actually thought about doing, like, how to make your travel just a little bit more pleasant. And it's really simple. Things like take electric tape with you. It's because it does not take that much room. Take electric tape with you in your luggage and take a binder clip or a clip clothespin. For me, like, I'm a really Light sleeper. And so the smoke detectors in some hotel rooms have little flash to them. And then I can't go to sleep. So I get out my electric tape and I cover it up. Or the binder clip. You know those hotel rooms where you cannot get the shades drawn all the way and there's a clip of light. So I get out my binder clip and I just crump it all together and I clip it in. I've also seen people do that with the coat hanger that has the code clips on the end for pants and that kind of thing. But yes, I've actually thought about doing a blog post on, you know, hey, if you travel three or four times a year, just here are five things that if you take with you, you'll have a much better trip.

[B]

I love it. I routinely am finding very small binder clips in all everything. You know, my jeans pocket, my bags, my coats. Everywhere I find these small binder clips and I have definitely used them. When hems on pants have fallen out, you just put one of those right in the back of your pants. If your pants are dark enough, you can pop off the little silver sides and you can get away with it.

[A]

I never even thought about that. It would also work for like cuffs on shirts if you lose the button. Oh my gosh, that's ingenious. I'm stealing that one. Thank you.

[B]

Small binder clips.

[A]

Yeah, that is a great idea. Leslie. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing great information with us about operating models and strategy. And also thanks for sharing with us some good travel tips. I know again, a lot of listeners are probably not on a plane every week, but they probably are every eight or ten weeks. So thank you so much. I know that our listeners have gained just tremendous insight from you. I want to make sure that they know they can go to Bridgespan's [e-mail] while at that website they can check out all of the resources that you talked about. So for example, Executive team resources or bridgespan.org, this article that we've been talking about on operating models is on bridgespan.org so really folks should go. And while they're there, they can also sign up for your newsletter which gets people high quality content. Now I will share with you all listeners that we're not going to put, rather I'm not going to read in the URL for the article we talked about today, Operating Models, how nonprofits get from strategy to results. Because it's like a three line URL. What you can do is you can google it so search Nonprofit Operating model. Or you can go to the show [e-mail] and we will link it there. Hey Leslie, thank you again.

[B]

I really enjoyed being with you. Thanks for having me.

[A]

If you were just timing how quickly you could pack a suitcase and then doing it all over again to try to beat Leslie's record, well, give up because you're not going to get sub 10. You're just not. Now I can also understand, though, that you were so busy doing that that you did not Write down Bridgespan's URL. URL. Sometimes I'm surprised because it's bridgespan.org but anyway, if you didn't write it down and you need to find it out, well, here's what you got to do. Just go to successful nonprofits.com and you can get it at our Show Notes. Now someone mentioned to me that I have not promoted the Successful Nonprofits Facebook page in a while and so they encouraged me to give it a quick promotion. So here it is. If you're on Facebook, mosey on over to Success Successful Nonprofits and give us a like there. We do a good little number of updates so you'll see more from us if you're on our Facebook page. And if you love today's show, hit the subscribe and like buttons on your streaming device. That's our show for the week. I hope you've gained some insight to help your nonprofit thrive in a competitive environment.

[D]

I am not an accountant or attorney, and neither I nor the Gold River Group provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. This material has been provided for informational purposes only, is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for tax, legal, or accounting advice. Always consult a qualified licensed professional about such matters.