Develop a Plan to Develop People

An individual or organization must have a conscious plan in place and a determination to make the development of people a top priority. Having no plan actually stunts people's growth.

Build on Strength

Schools, of necessity, focus on what the student can't do as their mission is to provide basic skills, in order to prevent deficiencies. But if you want people to perform in an organization, you have to use their strengths and not build upon limiting their weaknesses. By the time most are of working age, their personalities are set. Though they can learn new skills and gain knowledge, a leader should realize that its doubtful that their principal personality will change. One must use people as they are, not the way we would like them to be.

Don't take a narrow shortsighted view of developing people. Development is for the long-term as in a career. The job or tasks you involve people with, must fit into their longer-term goals.

Don't establish crown princes. These are people promoted because they appear to have talent or are "comers." Look at performance not potential.

Provide Support People

To develop other, provide these:

1. Mentors to guide them

2. Teachers to develop skills

3. Judges to evaluate progress

4. An Encourager to cheer them on

The Encourager can only be the person at the top. The Encourager allows people to make their own mistakes. Sometimes a controlling leader doesn't allow this. This attitude should be resisted as mistakes are necessary for development. When people fall flat on their faces, somebody has to pick them up and say, go on. That's the role of the encourager.

Mission

For all this to come together, the mission has to be clear and simple. It has to bigger than any one person's capacity. It has to lift up people's vision. It has to be something that makes each person feel that he or she can make a difference - that each one can say, I have not lived in vain.

One of the great strengths of a non-profit is that people don't work for a living, they work for a cause (not everybody, but a good many). That also creates tremendous responsibility for the institution, to keep the flame alive, not to allow work to become just a "job."

Discharge Those Who Don't Try

The sense of mission should be a tremendous source of strength for any non-profit, but it comes with a price tag. The non-profit is always inclined to let the non-producer stay. They feel that they are a comrade-in-arms and make all kinds of excuses. The rule is: if they try, they deserve another chance. If thy don't try, make sure they leave.

Evaluate the Organization's Progress

Effective non-profits also have to ask themselves all the time: Do our volunteers grow? Do they acquire a bigger view of their mission and greater skill? They look at people who work for them not as a static resource, but as a dynamic, growing force. They measure themselves by the development of their staff and volunteers.

Promote Personal Development

The most important way to develop people is to use them as teachers. Nobody learns as much as a good teacher. Selecting someone to be a teacher is also the most effective recognition.

Performance

Review performance. Sit down with people and say: This is what you and I committed ourselves to do a year ago. How have you done? What have you done well?

An effective organization pushes towards more performance. You want others to ask: Why can't we do more? Why can't we do better?

Building Teams

The more successful an organization becomes, the more it needs to build teams. To build a successful team, you don't start out with people - you start out with the job. You ask: What are we trying to do? Then, what are the key activities to achieve our results? Then and only then, do you ask, What does each of the dozen people at the top have by the way of stength? How do the activities and skills match?

Everybody on the team should know what to do. And just as important, everyone should know what each one of the other people is going to do. You identify individual strengths, then match the strengths with key activities and position your players to take key action.

Making Strength Effective

There are two keys to a person's effectiveness in an organization. One is that the person understands clearly what he or she is going to do and doesn't ride off in all directions. The other is that each person takes the responsibility for thinking through what he or she needs to do the job. That done, the person goes to all the others on whom they depend - the superior, the associate, the subordinates - and says, "This is what you are doing that helps me. This is what you are doing that hinders me. And what do I do that hinders/helps you?