By Holly Delany Cole & Valyrie Laedlein, CRE Co-Directors - In July 2010, the two of us wrote a blog post speaking to the decision that our Board of Directors had made to appoint the two of us to the roles of Co-Directors of Community Resource Exchange.
At the time we’d promised to make this blog the site of regular updates on what we would learn in this position, especially as we lived out our roles as co-leaders.
That was 6 months ago...
The fact that it’s taken so long to get a post up on the topic should come as no surprise to any other newly appointed Executive Director. However, in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions and fresh starts, we are going to try to reform ourselves and improve our track record. Voila.
In the course of our odyssey to connect with stakeholders outside of CRE to re-introduce ourselves as CRE’s new leaders, we’ve heard a range of reactions from folks courageous enough to share their honest opinions on our co-appointment. A number have not blinked twice at the news, and others applauded it, noting their knowledge of and positive experience with organizations or businesses led by Co-Directors. Quite a number of the folks we met are curious about “how it will work” and asked us to lay out our vision of teaming to lead CRE. And yes, several expressed genuine skepticism about this arrangement and concern that co-directorships are very difficult to make work. To be fair, until we walked this walk ourselves, we were among the very cautious when consulting to our clients on succession planning and co-leadership structures. There are a lot of reasons why Co-Directorships crash and burn: lack of sufficient agreement about organizational vision or goals; the cumbersome or clumsy division of responsibility which can generate confusion and frustration among staff reports; and inefficiencies, which have at their heart a lack of trust or respect between the two leaders.
We get it. And indeed, we had seen some of these very pitfalls play out first-hand among a number of nonprofit clients over the years. Heck, we’ve seen them play out in the news among the corporate giants. So we were not (too) surprised when we heard some funders and friends express reservations about our own decision to co-lead at CRE.
However, inspired by groups who have “rocked” with co-leadership, like Make the Road New York, we were confident it would be an advantage for CRE as well. Our sense, and that of our Board, is that it is working. As we’ve reflected on what have been a successful transition and first several months in these roles for us, we’ve recognized a few lessons that may be useful to share with others in our sector. Note: we think this is relevant not only to those who are fellow Co-Directors. The reality is that many of our clients who are officially structured with a single Executive Director or CEO, along with a Deputy or COO, are in very similar situations to ours. Here we go:
- Agree ahead of time about how to resolve disagreements before you encounter any significant ones – Well before taking up the roles, we reaffirmed to each other what mattered most with respect to the organization’s future: what are our respective driving values and beliefs about management, planning and relationship building, and how we each handle disappointment and approach conflict and decision-making. Though we had worked side-by-side for many years as deputies, these conversations were among the most frank we had ever had.
- Create time for ongoing meaningful communication – We make appointments for regular planning time together as well as seize opportunities for informal connecting time. Our meetings are used to share thoughts on strategy and work load, as well as to check in with each other, exploring, “Is this working for you?” and “What do you need from me to get to better results?”
- Rely on data to inform decisions – We test our hunches and preferences, which are subject to difference, and look for data, facts, analyses, and examples to inform our view -- to increase our chances of reaching a common conclusion AND of understanding one another.
- Start from a place of trust in the other and then cultivate more trust – Nothing “festers.” We resist the temptation to speculate or make assumptions about what is meant when one or the other may have said or done something unanticipated. We speak up and clarify our individual thinking and questions with one another whenever we catch ourselves wondering if we are (or are not) coming from the same place.
- Be willing to stand-in for each other and move forward from that position – We are learning to leverage that ability to use an alter-ego who can act on CRE’s behalf and then be grateful for the time it buys us. This ability to fully trust one another’s judgment in handling situations when one is not present and to move forward as if the decision was our own goes a long way in creating efficiencies and facilitating planning and action.
Many of the practices that we’ve put into place to facilitate our partnership and advance CRE’s interests are echoed in the study by Oliver Wyman, Designing Effective Co-Leadership. In reviewing the experience of for-profit organizations that used co-leaders, Wyman isolates some preconditions and requirements for success, among which are: positive working relations, complementary knowledge and skills, a culture of collaboration, alignment of strategy and goals, unity of presentation and communication, and the establishment of clear decision-making mechanisms. These are unsurprising findings perhaps, but we also know that they are often more easily said than done. For our part, we took this as affirmation that we are on the right path. We look forward to sharing more with you over the coming year about how we fare together and most importantly, what we think it yields for CRE and our work in the sector.
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