Importance of Team Leader Training
This week we launched our re-vamped two-day Team Leader training program. Through the Introduction and 9 modules, we try to set the stage for excellence in program delivery. Through analysis and synthesis of the main currents of thought and practice in leadership and management across the public, private, non-profit and non-governmental sectors, the Team Leader training covers:
Maintaining program fidelity
Being technically and tactically proficient
Making sound and timely decisions
Setting the example
Knowing your team and looking out for their welfare
Training your people as a team
Knowing the boundaries of your leadership
Balancing management & leadership
Using data to improve your team
Several things struck me this week in ways they haven’t as profoundly in other Team Leader training we have done:
We need to invest more time and energy in developing Team Leaders early on in the development and delivery of programs rather than doing it after the program has been running any great length of time.
We need to help people better understand the differences between leadership and management.
Team Leaders need a safe space to explore ideas, network, expose deficiencies and ask their peers for help and guidance. This won’t always be successful when their funder is present.
The right combination of real life situations and theory are core components for Team Leaders to soak in what they are learning.
The uniqueness of the Team Leader position needs to be better understood and embraced by the organizations that they work for and the staff that are supported by them.
Some organizations are not investing in full-time Team Leader positions, which can affect team performance.
We can’t look at Team Leader training as just a two-day event and need to better position it as a worthwhile online casino investment as part of the learning culture and professional casino development within each organization.
If you’d like to learn more about our Team Leader training, drop me a note at idejong@orgcode.com
National Alliance to End Homelessness Conference 2011 – aka #naeh11
My last tweet from the conference claimed that #naeh11 rocked harder than KISS on a stadium tour.
I stand behind that even as the days pass since the conference ended and reflection sets in and turns in part to wisdom. I think what made it rock for me this year was different than past conferences.
From my vantage point there was a bit of an edge amongst conference delegates. The edge wasn’t defiance. It wasn’t even anger per se. It struck me that there was frustration.
The source of the frustration? I heard over and over again the impact of the economy on local communities and state governments and decreased fundraising efforts. I heard over and over again about increasing demand for services. But I actually don’t think it was solely either or limited to both of those things.
I think there are communities that entered into 10 Year planning fully committed to seeing homelessness ended. But now they see the 10 Year Plan sit on a shelf or the local leadership shift or the resources made unavailable.
I think there are people and organizations that understand truly what effective approaches and evidence-based practices are and work hard to implement them, only to find other organizations still questioning Housing First, Rapid Re-housing, Critical Time Intervention, Harm Reduction, Trauma Informed Service Delivery and the like. They feel it is a constant, up-hill battle.
I think that the misuse of phrases and terms is stoking the frustration. There was Sam Tsemberis – the Mac Daddy of Housing First in the US – delivering a Keynote Address, and yet I heard “Housing First” misused at least a dozen times over the three days. I suspect that makes Sam cringe as much as it does me. Another overused, misused term was “case management”. I’d like to think it was only misused by those without formal training in social service delivery, but I am probably wrong on that front. I could go on and on and on. But as this relates to frustration, one of the things that makes the housing and homeless service delivery system so hard to explain to people is that we keep changing the language or have senior managers use language incorrectly and the like. Kind of makes it hard to communicate to other systems. (And as a related aside, can we PLEASE agree that we work with “homeless people” or “homeless individuals” or “homeless families” and respect that they are a heterogeneous group rather than saying “the homeless”? Thanks.)
I think we are feeling the effect of leaders amongst the boomers retiring or moving on to other challenges. Now is the time to provide Leadership for Outcomes (which coincidentally is a training series we offer – not that I am trying to make a plug in the blog). But I think we need to realize that it is frustrating when people mistake management for leadership…when the people looked up to in local communities do not have the tactical nor technical proficiency to be pull off what they are asked to lead.
I think we are looking to new energy and change-drivers to make things happen locally and that some places just need renewed energy. As Becky Kanis of the 100,000 Homes Campaign shared with me, a lot of the individuals driving the local boot camps and registry weeks are not the usual suspects or even who might be expected to take on such a role given their position.
I think the edge was even there with some of the speakers and presenters. For example, I absolutely loved how Sam defined this as the “decade of impatience”. I loved how Mark Hurwitz from Project Renewal in NYC presented figures on rates of incarceration and the inherent problems with sledgehammer force and precision in a session on working with ex-offenders. Then there was Elaine deColigny from EveryOne Home in Alameda County who did a sensational job talking about targeting prevention and essentially telling people to stop the guess work on prevention efforts and become data driven and evidence-informed. I loved her quote, “Data is like crack. Get a taste & you’ll want more.”
I felt the frustration amongst people who attended the sessions that I provided. One was on Data and Performance Simplified and the other was with Susan McGee, Amanda Sternberg and Kim Walker on creating an approach to Performance Measurement at the System Level. As usual, I brought the funny but didn’t get nearly the same energy from the attendees. In fact, for the first time ever I had two different people tell me to stop being funny at the sessions because it was distracting. Aside from jokes, people shared their stories with me about trying to take data and performance measurement seriously back in their organization or community only to have little or no support. I heard anecdotes about senior managers ignoring data whenever it told them something they didn’t want to hear.
And lastly I think there is a certain frustration with the sheer magnitude of change that people and organizations have experienced without yet having the opportunity to enjoy the “new normal”. My good pal Dr. John Whitesell introduced me (and others at conferences) to the great quote from Bartlett and Ghoshal’s The Leader’s Change Handbook, “The metaphor of a caterpillar transforming itself into a butterfly may be romantic but the experience is a highly unpleasant one for the caterpillar. In the process, it goes blind, its legs fall off and its body is torn apart to allow the beautiful wings to emerge.” I think some people and organizations are frustrated that they are still in the going blind-leg falling off-body torn apart stage and still haven’t got to the beautiful wings moment.
But lest you think the frustration is bringing me down, it actually gives me a lot of hope. See, people are frustrated because they care. If there were indifference, people would be checking out, not being frustrated. I think the Alliance is doing the right things through knowledge dissemination and certainly through the HEARTH Academy to try to challenge and harness that frustration into something positive – a force for good. I think social media will allow people the opportunity to vent their frustration and find like minded souls from around the world that share their approach and feelings to wanting to end homelessness even if they cannot always be nurtured locally. I think that through collective impatience that revolution – dare I call it a permanent revolution…but no, not “that” permanent revolution – is entirely possible. I think new initiatives and campaigns give people something to focus on and invest in to turn frustration into favourable energy. I think attending a conference with some 1,200 or so delegates that more or less also believe that ending homelessness is a good idea provides a safe, comfortable place to be frustrated – and I’ll take that frustration over the brand of frustration likely found in other communities large and small that still resist a change in focus to ending homelessness – the type of place that puts the “fun” back in “dysfunction” with the dynamics of how they relate to one another.
I can’t wait to share the journey with these frustrated folks over the next few conferences – assuming I get invited again in the future. Seems to me that if handled right this frustration is a sign of greater things to come.
If you want a copy of Iain’s presentations from the conference, send him a note at idejong@orgcode.com
Making Sense of Data
On one of my recent hotel stays, this is what the dashboard showed inside the elevator:
Now, there are a few interesting tidbits that make this story even better. First, when I checked in I was told I was on the 1st Floor, which is AKA “L”. Second, 5 is really the second floor. Third, there are only four floors to the hotel.
I suspect to the people that work at the hotel and use the elevator daily, this number series makes complete sense. To me, well, it reminded me of those times that I have been parachuted into homeless management systems to help make sense of what is going on. In most instances, they have a collection of data points – sometimes with peculiar labels like this elevator dashboard – and an assumption that everyone knows what the starting point is. Truth is, for any information system to have meaning, it has to be easily understood and be logical.
Next week I will be in Washington, DC speaking at the National Alliance to End Homelessness conference. One of the sessions I am doing with Amanda Sternberg, Susan McGee and Kimberly Walker is on performance measurement. During that presentation I will be stressing these key points:
Begin the design of your performance measurement system with the end in mind. Too often organizations or communities have been collecting oodles of data without knowing why they are doing it or what it is going to tell them. I say articulate in one sentence what your organization intends to do and the change it seeks to create.
Have solid strategic objectives. If you have good objectives and good measures for those objectives then you are actually testing whether the change that you want to see (say, ending chronic homelessness) is actually happening.
Create a data loving culture. Believe it or not, with enough cheerleading data collection, analysis and use to improve performance can be motivating and – dare I say it – fun! I look for data to be used and performance measurement to occur top to bottom and bottom to top within an organization. I love seeing Boards use data to make decisions and staff wrestle with what information is saying to that they drive improvement.
Ensure the data collection and performance measurement has value. If frontline staff don’t see themselves reflected in the system, they simply won’t use it or they will lie or a combination of both. Recent surveys we have done show that at least 1 in 5 organizations have had staff that have felt this way. Oh, and do clients see value in having their information collected and analyzed?
Focus on getting better and better and better. A solid incremental approach is better than starting with a monstrous performance measurement design that fails because of its own weight. Building over time and getting better over time is entirely acceptable – and encouraged.
Iain learned to embrace his inner-nerd a long time ago, and as a result has found that between his experience as a practitioner and data-geek a fine balance can be formed to help organizations out in a meaningful way.
Why I am stoked about the National Alliance to End Homelessness Conference
I love the National Alliance to End Homelessness conferences. Great networking. Great learning. Best conference there is on homelessness hands down. Did I mention that I have been doing presentations at the conferences for many years now? All around, super duper awesomeness.
I will probably blog about this more, but in the fashion of The Late Show, here is my Top 10 list of why I am stoked about this year’s conference:
10. It’s in Washington. When not at the conference there are amazing things to see and do even if the city was built on a swamp and the humidity can be intense. A couple of years ago I went to the Holocaust Museum. Changed me forever – and I am not easily moved. (Okay, so I cried at the end, but don’t tell anyone – and I am not Jewish.)
9. Cool cats. Movers and shakers. Industry leaders. Stalwarts of change. Motivation that all may be alright in the universe. Every year I meet that one person (or persons) who make me want to keep going for another year. Given my personality, these are not your usual touchy-feely burnt out social worker types. These are people who see the world from a different angle and see the beauty in problem solving.
8. Some of the best friends I have I met in Washington. In my adult life, I have always found making new friends to be hard. But something magical happens in Washington where I am exposed to people in a setting that helps me let my guard down and be open, honest and sharing. And then I get the reciprocal benefit.
7. Nan Roman. She leads the National Alliance to End Homelessness. She is a riveting tour de force. Even with knowing some of the “behind the scenes” thanks to my pals at the Alliance, her opening address in particular always leaves me writing furiously and thinking intensely.
6. Other Alliance Staff. Over the years people like Meghan Henry, Bill Sermons, Aisha Williams and Kim Walker have become trusted pals that I can bounce ideas off of, and they do the same. The Alliance has this unique ability to attract some of the best and brightest to work for them. That I get to know them, share meals with them and dream about the future with them is nourishing.
5. A Keynote that will Blow My Socks Off. In Oakland in February at the Conference on Ending Family Homelessness they got Robert Reich to speak. I mean, holy crap! This dude is the real deal and then some. Don’t know who he is and why getting someone like him to speak is important? Check out http://robertreich.org/
4. I Will be Taken Out of My Comfort Zone. At least once – either in a session or keynote or plenary – I will find myself out of my comfort zone. The more mature I get, the more I realize this is helpful for learning and discerning and caring and sharing and daring.
3. Existing Clients and Friends Will Be There. I remember when I used to work for the City of Toronto I sent out an email telling folks I had met in my travels that I was going to the NAEH Conference and they should consider going to. Well, here we are almost 5 plus years later and many of the people and organizations that I admire the most are there. I know that I had at least something to do with increased exposure of people in Canada to the work that the Alliance does and their conference.
2. Back by Popular Demand, I Will be Presenting “Data and Performance Simplified”. A couple years back in Los Angeles, I presented this at the Ending Family Homelessness Conference for the Alliance. I admit that at first I wasn’t wildly enthused about it, but early in consulting, I made the most of it. Well, because of such phenomenal feedback, I have presented it a half dozen times since. Not to brag or anything, but it is repeatedly one of the highest rated sessions at the conference. They call it an “expert forum”. I am a bit tickled by the acknowledgement, but have also come to realize I have something to offer when it comes to thinking about data and performance. Moreover, there are a bunch of communities that have entered into new relationships with us at OrgCode based upon this situation. (Or maybe just the jokes. I admit I use it as a bit of a stand-up opportunity – including apologizing for Justin Beiber as an order of Canadian Parliament).
1. I Get to Share Another Presentation with People & Organizations I Respect & Admire This Year. While by no means the only people I respect and admire, I am totally pumped to be having a second presentation this year, with some people that I truly hold in my heart and head with phenomenal respect. I am on a panel with Kim Walker from the Alliance (we shook things up in Nebraska together last year and she is one fierce thinker); Susan McGee from Homeward Trust in Edmonton (she is worthy of my highest esteem about a gazillion times over on what she has achieved in Edmonton); and, Amanda Sternberg from Homeless Action Network Detroit who – and definitely a woman after my heart – gave up the chance to be an Executive Director in exchange for being the person in charge of performance measurement and driving change through data and performance.
Well, that is just the Top 10. There are more. And these may not be in the right order. But in a nutshell, I cannot wait to get to Washington, DC and see so many people I know, respect and admire. I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to teach what I know. And I want to know I am part of a movement that truly believes homelessness can be ended.
If you want a copy of Iain’s presentations in Washington, contact us at info@orgcode.com
A Sweet Suite Upgrade, A Fire Alarm, Resuming What I Am Doing & The Guy Who Knocked on My Door
It all begins with an idea.
When I do work in Detroit, I tend to stay at the Motorcity Casino Hotel. The main reasons: it is located close to the offices of the organization I am doing work for; and, it is the cheapest hotel in the area on Expedia by a lot.
I stay in a lot of hotels. This is one of the best. Amazing staff. Clean. Fast WiFi. Oh, and the casino has a Star Wars slot machine (that only focuses on the original three movies, so it is cool – Jar Jar Binks free).
Yesterday at check-in they asked me if I wanted a free upgrade. I wish these sorts of things happened more often. I said sure. Danielle – the super awesome check-in lady – wanted me to know that the suite they were providing me was on part of a floor where all of the suites are also accessible for people with physical disabilities. No problem to me, unless I would be taking it away from someone who needed an accessible suite.
At around 3am, the fire alarm went off. This isn’t the first time that this has happened when I have stayed in a hotel. It is annoying to be sure. But I have never experienced a vibrating bed and pulsing strobe lights and ear splitting pitches that make fire engine sirens sound tame.
After the first few minutes, I thought it might be a real fire. The alarm indicators (vibrations, lights, pitches) weren’t stopping. Then I did the pacing around my room thing with increased anxiety. Then I put on my jeans and T-shirt and was getting ready to vacate my 13th floor (yes they actually name it the 13th floor instead of other hotels that skip from 12 to 14) room. Just as I was unlocking my door, the sounds and lights stopped. Walking back to my bed, disrobing again, an announcement came over the speakers, “The alarm has been investigated. There is no fire. Please resume your normal activities.”
Please resume your normal activities?
I guess in my case that meant sleeping.
Snuggled back into one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in, my head laid on the pillow, my eyes shutting again there was a loud knock on the door and a booming voice “Hotel Security”.
Back out of bed, pants on I shuffled to the door, looked through the peephole (there are three on the door at different heights) and sure enough, they looked like Hotel Security. I opened up the door.
“Sir, we are just checking in on all guests staying in our accessible suites to make sure they are alright after the alarms and to make sure they feel confident they could get out in the event of a fire.”
Back to bed. But in got me thinking about a few things that come up in homelessness work all the time.
Do we sound multiple alarms?
How do people react to shocking experiences?
What exactly constitutes a “normal” activity?
Do we check to make sure everyone knows the way out?
If we want to truly end homelessness we have to have multiple alarms – point in time counts, HMIS data mining for individual users on an annual basis, affordable housing stock analysis, etc. We should use the data in ways that will rattle them. Wake them up. We need our communities, elected officials, policy wonks, faith groups to be shaken into believing there is something happening that needs attention.
When the alarm was sounded, at first I thought false alarm. Then as time passed I got more concerned. Then I paced. It was only as I was taking action that the false alarm was made known. My good friend Toby Druce is a genius, I think. One of the things he has helped me understand overtime is the pathways that people experience once they reach homelessness, and how some people go down a pathway where being homeless seems normal to the person. From last night I got thinking about what those first few hours, days or weeks must be like after you have experienced the shock of being homeless. Is it something that is going to pass quickly? What things do I need with me? Where should I go? Won’t someone tell me what to do or where to go?
And then the “all clear” announcement telling people to resume normal activities got me thinking about the confusing information and advice that is frequently shared with homeless people. You wouldn’t believe how many places I have been where the “normal activities” provided to homeless people are employment training, addiction counseling, prayer, mental health supports, clothes, life skills training and the like. Those seem to be “normal” activities to provide. At what point did helping people access housing – the only thing that will actually end their homelessness – become such an abnormal activity to offer? Paraphrasing David Hulchanski’s writing, homelessness may not only be a housing problem, but it is always a housing problem.
Finally the experience with hotel security got me thinking about whether we make sure everyone gets out of homelessness. It also got me thinking about how communication even after the event of homelessness is important. Should an emergency happen again, they wanted to make sure I would be okay getting out. Which also got me thinking about how we don’t do enough sometimes in exit planning with clients after they have been housed to ensure that they have ideas of what they will do if they find themselves confronted with the possibility of homelessness again.
Lots of thinking.
I just wish I had done most of it later today rather than staying up another couple of hours thinking about how that dang fire alarm makes me think about homelessness and our responses.
What I do for a Living
It all begins with an idea.
I spend a lot of time in airports, airplanes, hotel lobbies and restaurants alone where I tend to eat at the bar. One of the inevitable questions in these types of environments is “What do you do for a living?”
Sometimes I use the bland “I’m a consultant.” But I have learned that begs more questions about what type of consultant I might possibly be.
Sometimes I say that I teach at York. Like saying “I’m a consultant” this usually leads to questions about what I teach.
See, for a long time I have been avoiding telling people that I work on homelessness, housing and social policy issues. It’s one of those subject matters where lots of people have opinions. I am cool with that. But what I am not cool with is that we seem to have gotten to a place in our society where having a big heart is seen as sufficient qualification for working on homelessness issues. Ending homelessness is hard work that requires specialized skills.
I have nothing against charities. Charities play an important role in meeting immediate needs. Think of a major disaster – hurricane, tornado, flood, earthquake, wild fire. We need charitable responses to provide food, clothing and shelter for a short period of time in each of these unfortunate situations until other responses can take over. Charitable responses are not designed to be long term. And here is a kicker for some – charity has never solved a social problem.
One of the most influential books in the way that I think about homelessness, housing and social policy is called “Poverty’s Bonds” by Patrick Burman. Through his work I like to think of five different levels in responding to these types of issues.
Charity is the bottom rung of the ladder. It does not solve the problem. And yet it is the most pervasive.
Bureaucratic Responding is next up. This examines the hoops that we make people jump through to get their needs met. This isn’t just government. Bureaucratic tendencies are pervasive in most homeless and housing service systems. At its core is a question of eligibility. But this isn’t just about trying to find the right service response. Think of the poor soul who is only eligible for a meal or a bed if they agree to pray to a deity that they may not believe in.
Needs Assessment holds the middle space. I think this is the bare minimum that any service system should aim to hit. I think it is incumbent upon us to ask people what their needs are and try to design services and systems to meet those needs as efficiently and effectively as possible. It is foolish and absurd – not to mention condescending – to think that providers of programs and policy wonks have the answers without talking to the people they are paid to serve.
Community Development is the rung one step removed from the top. Think of this in the true sense of Community Development, not the watered down version offered too often as an illusory olive branch that pretends to involve people in shaping their own community. This is strength based and adaptive. It meets people where they are at and builds capacity based upon their defined community needs.
And then there is Advocacy – the top of the pyramid. This is self-advocacy. It reflects self-determination. There is a heightened sense of awareness that comes with reaching this level, and a respect of the position of personal enlightenment that a person knows not just want they want, but has the fortitude and resolve to advance their agenda independent of outside forces.
But I don’t think we are ready as a society to really embrace these five steps and the consequences of each – especially Needs Assessment and above – as the dominant paradigm for how services should be provided and systems designed. I think the learning and re-profiling that needs to go into escaping a charity model or an approach loaded with cumbersome, unnecessary bureaucracy is too scary for many. We can get there, but it is often one organization and community at a time.
In the meantime when I am really drained or on the precipice of burnout, I admit that I am selfish sometimes and tell a little lie when people ask me what I do for a living. I tell them that I am in the pet insurance business – mainly discharged small lab rodents. It’s a quantity business I tell them. I’d rather hear the opinions of a stranger about the pet insurance business than hear another story of how they volunteer to feed “the homeless” (rather than “homeless people”) by doling out soup and sandwiches or volunteering at their church’s mat program. Or hear their theories about mental illness or addictions or family breakdown or abuse. I don’t want to hear another rant about helping people pull themselves up by their boot straps which is pretty friggin’ hard to do when you don’t even have boots. And I sure as heck don’t want to hear another story about the dude they see on their way to work every single day who panhandles from them. Twice in my life when I have told the truth of what I do for a living on a plane I have had complete strangers grab my hand to engage me in prayer, which freaked me out. I only use this lie when I am at my most tired, but pushing the rock up hill constantly it seems to get people to realized that we need professional responses if we want to end homelessness really wears me out sometimes.