Highlighting the best ideas from the best sessions is our intention. Hugh Ballou and Russell Dennis point to interviews for more listening and more personal growth.
Here's the Transcript
NPE Hugh & Russell
Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it’s an episode of the Nonprofit Exchange that is the Hugh and Russell show. Russell David Dennis and Hugh McPherson Ballou, we are going to chat today about some of the great things that we’ve heard in the past podcasts. We create a lot of content, and it’s time to reflect on that. Russell, how are you doing today?
Russell Dennis: It is a beautiful day here in Denver, Colorado. It did snow a little bit yesterday. Now it’s gone back to Denver-type weather, at least for the front range here. There is a beautiful cap on the mountains that you can see miles and miles coming in. Life is good.
Hugh: Your life is always good. You make it that way. When I lived in Colorado, they had a saying: If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes.
Russell: It does change frequently. We are expecting some pretty mild weather for this time of year. But the skiers are happy. We got a natural cap. The snow machines are going. Let the skiing begin. It will continue through May.
Hugh: Through May. Wow. So we are live on Facebook. We record our podcasts as a live video feed, so anybody who is listening to the Nonprofit Exchange podcast, feel free to join us on Facebook live on Tuesdays at 2:00 Eastern Time. You go to thenonprofitexchange.org, and it will lead you there. We post to the past sessions and create new sessions every Tuesday.
Russell, I find that when we are doing it live that we have unexpected participants that join us on Facebook. I also find that there is an energy with creating that live event. What is your experience with this?
Russell: I have had people come in and share their experience because it enhances the program. It always helps to have people ask questions that are burning in their minds. One of the things to consider because as nonprofit leaders, you’re running an enterprise. It’s a business like a lot of others. The big difference is the tax status. There are problems with people and business and just operating that can be solved and leadership issues. These are things that people want to talk about. I like to bring people things that they want to hear about. I love when people ask questions because it gives us points for discussion. We find out what sort of things are important to you out there, and that is what matters to us.
Hugh: I was with both Burt Oliva and David Dunworth two weeks ago tomorrow down in Florida, and we managed to dodge the weather and do some meaningful things in between the storms. As I spend time with both of those gentlemen who are both watching right now, I really appreciate the level of skill they have and the level of expertise. David Dunworth has been on this podcast. I’ve talked to Burt, and he and his team are going to be part of this interview process next month. Their calendar is pretty full. I look forward to having them. The fact that you are connected to them is also great.
We have been doing this Nonprofit Exchange. Our magazine editor, Todd Greer, Dr. Greer is an organizational psychologist. He has got a degree in organizational leadership… *audio interruption, clearly a network issue*
Russell: Can you hear me, Hugh? Can you hear me okay?
Hugh: Did I lose you and you’re back?
Russell: I lost you for a brief-
Hugh: Did you go away? Did you hear what I just said?
Russell: Very little of that. We had a little bit of a freeze there momentarily.
Hugh: High tech is really great when it works. When high tech works, it’s great. When it doesn’t work, it really stinks. What I was talking about the history of this podcast, and it starts as a video and then goes into the audio on Nonprofit Exchange podcast, which you can find on iTunes and Stitcher and most every platform. The Nonprofit Exchange. Russ, you have showed up faithfully as unofficial co-host, but you are trying to get out of it now. You are part of this process. How long have we been doing this together? Has it been a year?
*more technical difficulties*
Russell: We started fairly early in the year on a consistent basis. I popped in and out on some broadcasts in late 2016, but I’ve been consistent since probably about February. We’ve been co-piloting during the week. One of the things that has been pointed out because we’ve had people that have come in and talked about the use of technology for nonprofits and using it well. Technology is something that can enhance what we’re doing, but it’s not primarily what we’re doing. It’s important to use it well as a nonprofit leader not to be afraid of it. Technology can do a lot of things for you particularly when it comes to getting your message out.
*more technical difficulties*
I have been talking about technology and how we can leverage it to make it work. It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s something that can afford nonprofits the opportunity to get their organizations out in front of other people, whether it’s through Facebook or using Google. Google has put millions and millions of dollars into the nonprofit arena by offering grants to nonprofits to actually get their message out there.
*more technical difficulties*
You might be having a bandwidth thing going on there. Hang in there. I don’t know if you have some apps open that you might be able to close.
Hugh: I was going to blame it on you. I’m hoping that audio continued and I didn’t hear anything, but it could have been my own frailty here. I did change devices so I am on a different router now.
Russell: It seems to have cleared the problem up. I was talking about technology because that is so important for everything. One of the things that I was talking about getting messages out there, but it can be used to reach your audience. You can actually do a little bit more in terms of determining who the people are that are listening to you. You can get your message out in more cost-effective ways than you were ever able to do before. Like anything else, the thing that has been the overarching message that our guests have put out as far as using technology and social media and connecting with people is it’s all about relationships and building strong relationships with people you serve and those that you serve with. Technology is not a substitute for that, but it’s a way to factually extend that reach in a cost-effective manner.
Hugh: Absolutely. Russ, let’s talk about some impressions from- Tell me again when you and I started doing this together.
Russell: I think we started moving consistently in February because I pop in and out in 2016. But I’ve started showing up consistently. We have been here. I have been on just about every broadcast. I have had the honor and privilege of standing in a few times for you when you had other things that you had to get done. It’s been beautiful. It’s been a great thing for me. I have done other broadcasting, too. I’d like this talk show hosting. I think it suits me.
Hugh: You do it very well, and you’ve had me as a guest on your show. You know we have learned, in our association with our group called CEO Space, the power of cooperation, and we have taken it to the collaborative level. There is plenty of room for everybody to play because it’s a big playing field, and we bring it to a new paradigm.
Let’s look over some of the past podcasts. We have had the pleasure of interviewing some really amazing people. I don’t know about you, but I learn from every single one of them. As a matter of fact, every time we talk, I learn something from you. You have some incredible sound bites. You are very well-read. You continue working on self. I remember Jim Rohn would commonly say in his speeches, “Work on yourself harder than you work on your business.” That is my sense of Russell Dennis. You are always improving your own self. You have done many worthy things in your career. What you are doing is bringing all that value to people who need it. Thank you for being here, and thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Let’s collaborate on thinking about the wisdom we’ve gathered from some of these people we have interviewed recently. What are some of the messages that jump out to you from some of those great interviews we have had?
Russell: Here’s the panel discussion that we had that really sticks in my mind. Several weeks ago, we were talking about diversity. This is a discussion that I’ve been having with people all over the place. In fact, I had a discussion with one of my classmates from the Sponsorship Boot Camp around diversity. This lady is a naval officer. She was a pilot, so she experienced some interesting reactions from her fellow naval pilots. It’s pretty much a boys’ club. When we get into diversity, we can get stuck on race, but there’s not just race. There is age, gender, and socioeconomic status, which is really critical. Some of the things that I’ve read in the nonprofit press show a lack of diversity in our nonprofit boardrooms. That has an impact when you don’t have a diversity of leadership or a diversity of thinking styles. You’re leaving a lot on the table, and that’s been uppermost in my mind lately as far as some of our discussions go.
Hugh: Well, that’s Dr. Thyonne Gordon you’re referring to. The more I talk to her, the more I appreciate the depth of her wisdom and character. The context behind both her and Mr. William Lewis, they are both doctors and very skilled people. I was the white guy on the call, but it wasn’t, as you have carefully placed, about race. We think it’s about race. That’s a factor. But how about boomers and millennials? How do we get along? We don’t, because we don’t understand each other. The gender, you talked about. The sexual preference, what is your lifestyle? Did you grow up in the ghetto? There is so many dynamics.
When I participated years ago in working with a company in Germany that holds a competitive event called the World Choir Games, there were 400 choirs that show up from 100 countries. That is diversity. That is amazing diversity. People come together around a common thread, which is music, excellence in music. There is community that happens, not because you force it to happen, but because we all celebrate our diversity and celebrate the commonality that is music. I think we forget to think about the things we have in common. We think about what we have that is different rather than what we have in common.
Russ, even within a white church that has mostly people from one generation and one economic sector, there are diverse opinions, but they are trapped in this container, not being able to get outside their point of view. Somebody from outside to ask questions: What about this? It opens up the conversation. We do get closed in without thinking about possibilities. We just think about what we have always done. What I have gained out of that particular interview, which was the brilliance of two of our guests, is there are some things we can think about. Here are some other values that we could bring. Is it about diversity, or is it about inclusion? Is it about bringing creative energy into your organization? That call was not only about race; it was about a whole plethora of other really powerful things. Am I remembering some of the same things you are?
Russell: Yes, that’s true. That is what I took away. Here is where you have these things potentially show up in a bad way, if you don’t have that diversity. It’s understanding the populations that you serve. A lot of the populations look like everybody else, but some of them don’t. If you’re running a nonprofit and you’re trying to serve a population that you don’t have a solid connection with, it could reduce your effectiveness and your efficiency in doing that. There are all sorts of problems and other articles. I would love to bring those up. We discussed maybe doing another panel, and I have talked to a couple of people who would be good for that once we decide we want to do another one.
Hugh: Let’s spin on that a minute. If you’re listening to this podcast and diversity, inclusion, and building creativity on your board and your culture generally, if that is a topic of interest for you, please go to the podcast and do some comments. It is on the SynerVision website, and there is a place for comments. We very much welcome comments. If you are really into growing the culture in a creative way, I don’t think you can do without some diversity. What do you think, Russ?
Russell: You’ve gotta have it. That has been recognized by a lot of the new research that is out there. I read in the Chronicle of Philanthropy some of their findings. Those ads are out there. It’s really important. People are finding that this is critical. The Denver Foundation, right here where I work, they did an inclusion project and put quite a bit of money and research into it several years ago to actually tackle that problem. They have great material on their website, denverfoundation.org. They actually put some of the questions that they ask with limited information on some of the participants and some of the types of questions that they ask. They will be happy to talk with you about it if you want more information.
Hugh: Thank you for bringing this up. This is a really important topic. I think there should be a series of group discussions on this topic because it is such a big topic. It is such an important topic. When we had that call and I did a debriefing for the two guests, they both said there is a lot more content and sub-themes. We introduced so many themes in that call. What I think you ought to do is challenge me, or challenge each other, to put a series of these conversations together. We might have to do it not at this time, but do it at this time and broadcast it to be able to accommodate the variety of schedules. I want Wornie Reed, the race professor at Virginia Tech, on the call, and Andy Morikawa, my original founding board member, who have really good wisdom on boards and diversity. There are some others that you and I have talked about. I think there are lots of subthemes for us to work through and develop. What do you think of us having a series of conversations about that topic?
Russell: I’d love to do that. As a matter of fact, I have a preliminary agreement. I’ve got Andie Sue Phillips who will be appearing on the Nonprofit Culture Success show on November 1 at 4 pm EST. She and I are going to be talking about diversity. We are both veterans. She is very interested in coming on and doing the panel and talking. She has experienced this, and she has actually put together a very interesting program that a number of major businesses are looking at on diversity. They found her and approached her on the subject. I’m excited about that conversation that we’ll have coming up where she can talk about some of those tools.
And we have a number of things. I think you could spend an hour on gender on one program. You could spend an hour on age, particularly the disconnect between boomers like ourselves and millennials. It’s really a communication thing. A good friend of mine, Brooke Chestnut, who I went through the Colorado Speakers Academy with, has put some programs together to help organizations that are looking to recruit millennials actually get that done. He put together an interesting concept that he called reverse mentoring. I think it’s about time for me to give young Mr. Chestnut a call.
Hugh: He could be one of those panelists, couldn’t he?
Russell: Very easily. That is a piece of his work. Another good friend in the area, Russ Manery, does a lot of work around making sure you hire the right people. He is masterful at that. He was on my show a few weeks back. You got the conversation around age. You got a conversation around gender. Her being a veteran and me being a veteran, that opens up all sorts of doors for this conversation, and I’m looking forward to that.
Hugh: Me, too.
Russell: There is a lot to unpack there. Then of course there is socioeconomic status. People who actually are in need of a lot of the services that nonprofits provide. A big mistake I’ve seen people make over the years is that they have got wonderful ideas and they want to help, but somewhere along the way, they neglected to talk to the people that they are actually putting the program together for. Lo and behold, they had everything to sign, they had it funded, they built it, and nobody came. It’s really important to talk to these folks and find out how they want to be helped because if they’re accessing different services, they don’t know where to buy them so to speak. They are experiencing these gaps, and there is something that falls outside the purview of the guidelines. They are actually struggling to fill all the needs. This happens with everything, especially with school. Students can go out and get scholarships and not be able to take advantage of them because of the hidden costs like the fees, the flights, and the textbooks. There are just things that show up that nobody accounts for. Thandie Caraway was on the Nonprofit Culture Success show last week. I have to put that replay up.
Hugh: People will be listening to this way after the dates you gave, so let’s give a link so people can find that.
Russell: I will.
Hugh: What is that link?
Russell: For the Nonprofit Culture Success show, it’s on Facebook. I have that every week. It’s a webinar similar to this broadcast. I deliver it the exact same way. If you look up NP Culture Success on Facebook, you will be connected there.
Hugh: NP, meaning Nonprofit, Culture of Success. That is a really good program. You interviewed me a few weeks ago. I have been in a thread with some really fine folks.
Russell, when you were talking about programs they hadn’t checked out, it reminds me of a Robert Frost poem: “We sit in a circle and suppose/the secret sits in the center and knows.” Does that resonate at all?
Russell: That’s pretty good stuff. David weighed in and said there is a lot we could talk about where diversity is concerned. These types of discussions are what I really love to see. I would love to have more people weigh in. You want to know what people are interested in and struggling with because that is another way we can add value.
Hugh: I’m going to ask David Dunworth what some of those topics are that come to his mind. He said there are lots of topics that would enhance the facets of the show.
Russell, we’ve been looking at some of the past podcasts. Last week we had our friend Joe White who had an amazing presentation on goals. I teach goals. I said in that show that Joe did that module in my workshop. You have done your module twice. Everybody I’ve had present a module does a far better job than I do. Joe came in and presented goals, and it was resonant with what we have defined in SynerVision. He did a stunning job of that. He talked about his GPS system for setting goals, which I found to be very powerful. The Covey principle, sharpen the saw, comes to mind with people like that. We are always working on our tools, sharpening the saw so we can be better. You and I are no spring chickens. We have learned a lot of stuff; we have a lot of stuff. But we are not sitting on our laurels. We are growing our own skill and being able to share the wisdom and experience and skills we have learned over the years. Do you remember that conversation with Joe? Does anything come to mind from that for you?
Russell: The thing I loved about his GPS system is that it is incredibly powerful. There is a lot of power in it. The power comes from the simplicity that he rolls it out there with. Almost everybody that drives can relate to a GPS. It makes me wonder how we ever got anywhere without them. They have become so widespread that we are used to them. The power is the focus that comes from using a simple system, is what comes through. I think that any good system is easy to access, easy to understand, and easy to use. That comes from our friend Brendan Bouchard; that is not one of my originals. But it makes perfect sense because a lot of people in the industry, and I have had that conversation with him and other people in the personal development industry: maybe two or three out of every hundred that actually pick up a system implement it. This is where I want to help people get beyond that. If there is something that people can use in simple steps, they are going to be more likely to apply it. It’s not going to be overwhelming. That was Joe’s GPS system. It is a textbook example of that principle.
Hugh: He did a very good job of explaining it and laying it out. And he had a free gift. We don’t number the episodes of Nonprofit Exchange. If you find the one on Joe White setting powerful goals, that is a good one.
We are going to expand some other topics coming up. David Dunworth had filled in some. One was outsourcing and its challenges because of preconceived notions. I find a lot of charities and churches and synagogues say we don’t have time to do all these things, yet they want to hire people. You could outsource some of these things if you had sufficient time to develop your plan and methodology so you could hand it off.
One of the basic tenets of transformational leadership is being able to take things off your plate and empower some other people to do. You and I have talked about the burnout rate with nonprofit leaders, and it is unusually high. Part of it is we get stuck as leaders doing too much, and then we are not effective as we could be because we have too much on our plate. One of them is outsourcing. We think giving things to other people is a weakness in leadership when really it is just the opposite.
Some other topics that he threw on the table were gender bias, the glass ceiling, young versus old, the color barrier, and the multi-culture world is here. Those are some of the topics. I think besides being the glass ceiling, and that is commonly used with women who are limited- I find there is a lot more opportunity for growth and taking charge for women in the nonprofit sector because they have a unique ability to engage people and bring in some fresh ideas. A lot of the old white guys like me get stale. There is a freshness in them, especially the woman leaders of any race or age. I think there is a great opportunity.
The ceiling that John Maxwell talks about is the lid. The lid is our ability to lead the organization. That is the leadership issue, not a diversity issue. But it also could be a diversity issue if we had somebody that brought different skills. Are we going to put a lid on them? Many times, we have this scarcity thinking. It’s not just the lid that Maxwell talks about. His framing is that the organization cannot develop any further than the leaders’ ability to lead it, so there is the law of the lid. Sometimes, it’s not the leader’s fault; the organization and the culture puts a lid on that leader. “No, we don’t do it that way here.” You and I have seen circumstances where that happens. We have been in groups where we have participated mutually.
Talk about that a minute. The framing of leadership and the ability of the board to let the leader lead, if they show some competence. What are some things you have seen?
Russell: I’m working with the group now that has actually got good intent. It’s a new organization. They asked me to serve on their board. There have been some struggles with understanding what it is that they want. That speaks to the outsourcing that David was talking about. You have to understand what it is that you want in order to be a good customer. That takes some definition. A lot of social profit leaders are new to doing what they’re doing from a social profit realm, or they are taking on a big challenge. There could actually be some fear around whether some things are going to work. They are trying new things. They are trying things outside of their comfort zone. Those are things that can hold folks back. It’s really expanding the thinking outside of the old traditional limited realms. Good leaders build on the leaders around them. There is no better way to look good than to have a great team of leaders around you because they are actually doing the stuff on the ground. If you are the leader providing direction, these folks actually make you look good.
It’s really when you bring people onto a board or you are a board and you bring somebody to lead your organization, you are putting them in a position of trust. There is a lot that you are expecting them to do. If you don’t give them the tools or the autonomy to actually get things done, to leverage that creativity, you are going to have a little bit of trouble.
One of the things my good friend Doug Crude talks about is the brilliance of the team. You have a lot of brilliance under your roof, a lot of people that are dedicated and motivated. But if you suppress that talent and you don’t let them shine the way they want to shine, they will walk away. I don’t think that it’s fully a pay issue; it’s really an issue of am I making a difference here? This is really important for millennials. They want to do work that matters. They don’t want to be micro-managed. Nobody wants to be micro-managed. It’s having that trust for your team and not being afraid to make mistakes that will propel you forward. Those are several things that transformational leaders do.
Hugh: Absolutely. I am looking over some of the recent podcasts. We do develop a transcript from the interviews and put it in the Nonprofit Exchange podcast. Going back a while, you and I did a podcast on the five top things that block a leader’s success. That one had a lot of plays; it was in April.
There was also an interview we did with Dr. David Gruder, our friend who is an organizational developmental psychologist. It was about the people who are controlling the board with their anger. There were some things he gave us that were really helpful. We have seen lots of boards where they say they can’t do something because it will upset so-and-so. So we tiptoe around the topic, and they avoid dealing with it head-on. What I heard with that and some other of my studies is when you have conflict, you move toward it and remain calm and address the facts very directly. We tend to avoid in the effort to be nice. When we are trying to be nice to one person, like on a board, then we are devaluing every other person because we have let that person take us hostage. That was the interview with Dr. Gruder, which was before our discussion on those five things. That one spoke to me especially in a special way because I see that kind of thing happening an awful lot. That was back in February, believe it or not.
Russell: I think I’ve got that- We did that in June, I believe. I believe the February discussion was the discussion on the relationship that we have with money.
Hugh: The shadow- you’re right.
Russell: That particular program, he talked about the strong personalities on the board. If one person dominates a lot of the conversations, he talked about how they go about really getting their way and actually short-circuiting any conversation that people have. That is just not a good thing. As a matter of fact, what I’m going to do is drop that into the chat box. That’s a good one to go back and listen to if you have a strong personality that you are concerned about.
Dr. Gordon did a podcast that addressed boards, too. Hers was also in June or somewhere close by. That one was April 11. That was about empowering your board and structuring a good board. I was actually absent that week that you and Dr. Gordon talked about boards. What were some of the things that she brought up?
Hugh: There were a number of things. But it was empowering the board by asking them to do things. Going back to David Gruder’s piece, we let other people’s emotions control us. We have our own scripts that sometimes are not true. There was some synergy in the two presentations with Dr. Gruder and Dr. Gordon. She encouraged us to step up and ask board members to contribute money, time, and talent, all three. We tend to overcompensate by saying, “I’ll do it for them; they’re busy,” when that’s not what they want. What they want is meaningful contribution. They are on the board because they want to give their skillset. That doesn’t mean they are going to work every day for you, but it does mean they want to do something that is meaningful and see an impact from the organization. Her presentation is very valuable, and it’s one of the most listened-to episodes on the podcast over the last three years. Dr. Thyonne Gordon, you said it was in April. That is a very popular podcast. That is a very important podcast. It’s on a topic that I think a lot of boards struggle with.
David Gruder talked about the shadow in February, but he talked about the anger specifically, how people control boards with their anger. That is something that we tend to cave into but is not very helpful.
We are talking about David Dunworth who is watching us on Facebook at the moment. He talked about the brand and connecting it to the board. The board has impact on the brand. The board represents our brand. Your employees represent the brand. You represent the brand. We tend to think, Oh I’m a nonprofit; I don’t have a brand. It’s important that you have a brand identity, a brand promise. It’s important that you know what your brand is, and everybody supports that brand. David has lots of skills. His particular channel that day was talking about your brand and what I remember coming out of that is how people behave around that brand. Do you have some thoughts around David and what he shared?
Russell: It addressed leadership. His key message was that leaders are actually the brand, and they present the brand they build that once they build that, they safeguard it. They provide the direction and make sure. The brand is really what you’re all about. A lot of times, the word “brand” will bring up thoughts around some sort of packaging or snazzy jingle. We think about that sort of thing. We think about it in terms of marketing, but a brand is really a statement about who you are and everything that you do flows out of that. David was talking eloquently about the leader’s responsibility to make sure you have all the integrity and the effectiveness around that brand. You build on that, and it guides what you do. Leaders actually reflect that brand that your nonprofit is out there. That is a very good podcast. I did put that in the chat, too.
Those will be in the notes for folks that missed those particular ones. I drop those in the notes because they are great to go back to. I tend to make a list and go out and grab all of these links as they go up so that I could look at them because there is so much that we learn from those that you can’t absorb it all. I have to go back and listen to them again and again. That is the beauty of the Internet. We archive these videos, and they are there for our review. The podcasts are even better because you can listen to those on the fly. I put them on my iPod, and I can plug my iPod in the car and get it to go. You don’t even have to fight with CDs anymore. There is technology again, and it is beautiful when it works, which is most of the time.
Hugh: It is. “The Seven Essential Skills for Nonprofit Leadership Success,” that is one that you and I did. We went around that number seven because you had found seven to be a powerful number. The podcast that Todd Greer did years ago was on community. That is by far the most listened-to episode. It was relaunched on August 11 as an archive replay.
The other one is “Drucker Challenge: Managing Oneself in the Digital Age.” That was Frances Hesselbein and her leadership institute. She is an amazing person who is much older than you and I but shows up to work because she has a passion for creating value in people’s lives. She is very clear on who she is and what she offers.
The other one I wanted to lift up—We are coming close to our time. I like not to go over too much—is the due diligence one with Thomas Moviel. You interviewed Thomas. That was one of the times you got to do an interview and didn’t have the burden of Hugh Ballou getting in your way. Before you launch an idea, can you do some due diligence? Does the world need your nonprofit? I thought that was relevant. I met him at a conference and invited him in because- You may have more relevant statistics than this, but my memory is that half of the nonprofits that are formed every year close. They are not able to fully achieve their mission at any level. That might partly be because the world didn’t need your idea. You go to all the trouble of launching something before you did a check-up to see if it’s really needed. Do you remember that interview you did with Thomas?
Russell: Yes, it was quite a while ago. One of the things that David pointed out is that the brand philosophy and its tenets have to be present throughout the whole organization, not just with the leadership. Thomas and I talked about some of that identity, but what we were really talking about was making sure that you understand what it is that you do and what you do differently. The concept behind “Does the world need your nonprofit?” is understanding clearly what the problems that you solve are and focusing on things that you really do well. That was a big key takeaway that a lot of folks just don’t do that as well as they could. So we talked a little bit about some tools for doing that, but most of the emphasis was on the importance of doing that, whether it’s with a program or specific people that you go to attract to your organization. It’s really having that focus on the people that you’re serving.
Hugh: Amen. That was a really good interview. I saw him on Saturday and thanked him for that. I just had a hunch that would be something valuable. It’s been one of the most listened-to episodes.
As we do a wrap here, Russell, I thought it would be good for us to pause in our pretty active schedule of interviewing thought leaders and for you and I to reflect on some of the lessons and help people think about what they need next. As I am looking over the list since you and I have been doing this, there are a number of very powerful interviews that have of course the transcription there, but they have things that could be implemented.
The David Corbin interview about brand slaughter, which is the title of his book. The Penny Zenker interview about how to gain control over your life. It’s about that time robber. George Fraser talked about building a legacy. He has the largest African-American network in the world and is very humble about it. Don Green talked about the Napoleon Hill Foundation. He is going to contribute for the magazine about boards. That board uses business principles to support that nonprofit. Our friend Shannon Gronich did getting unlimited publicity. There is a whole methodology under that, which she is so brilliant about.
Russell, as we draw to a close, I customarily ask our guests to think about what they want to leave people with. Maybe you and I could take a turn doing that. What is your thought that from all the wisdom that we’ve ben able to partake in, what would you say to people listening to this podcast that you would wish they could do with some of this wisdom?
Russell: I would say refer back to it regularly. Never stop looking for ways to do what you do better. Always work from your strengths as much as possible. Find partners and other people to collaborate with so that you can cover those areas that you don’t necessarily do well because you are going to be much more effective just living it, working in your genius, and trusting that to make an impact than trying to create a new genius for yourself. Do what you do. Do your thing. That is really the most important thing: work from those strengths, and always be learning. Always keep learning. Always continue to look for opportunities to collaborate. Learning is a never-ending process. Don’ be afraid to try new things. If you are feeling stuck, stop and think about some of the people that you already have in your payroll or who are volunteering or who are writing your checks. It won’t hurt to ask your donors for ideas. Ask them what they’d like to see. It’s about getting people more and more engaged with what you’re doing and letting them know that what they’re contributing, whether it’s time, treasure, talent, or all three, how important that is. Let them know what’s possible through that regularly.
Hugh: Russ, that is really great. You took the words out of my mouth. I find people say, “I don’t have time to listen to podcasts.” Do you ever drive in your car anywhere? I never have anything but public radio and my podcasts, and I learn every time I listen to my podcast. What I appreciate about Russell David Dennis is that you are always working on your skill. You have a book you’re working on. What you pointed out is that just because you listened to it or read it doesn’t mean you know it all. What I have learned from our friend Ken Courtright is he goes back and reads great books again with a different colored highlighter. He finds that when he goes back and highlights passages that stand out to him, they are different than the ones he highlighted the first time. Either you didn’t see it or understand it, or you weren’t ready to learn it yet. I applaud what you said. That is a very good reminder for me. Just because you read it, just because you listened to it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to it again because you are ready to learn the next thing.
Russell, I’m grateful for you. Thank you for being on this series of podcasts. I would like to encourage people to go back and listen to this library of wonderful resources that we have as a gift for you. Please share your comments and the podcast on social media or on your email because we want people to listen to them. They are free. This is our gift to you.
Russell, thank you for today. I am grateful to you, sir.
Russell: It’s very good. If folks don’t already, keep going back to the SynerVision page, the Nonprofit Culture Success page on Facebook, and the Nonprofit Exchange Channel. Make sure you subscribe to that on YouTube. Check back regularly. Go in the comment areas and let us know what you think and what you want to hear about because we are here to serve you and help you make more impact in your communities.
Hugh: Good words, Russell. Thank you so much.
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