Notes on professional writing
Keep it simple, crisp, and focused on clients
During the last couple Leadership and Strategy classes, Professor
Sermier provided some perspectives on good professional writing that I
thought would be useful to share.
"If you can't make a crisp argument, you probably don't understand
what you're talking about."
Simplicity and clarity not only help others understand, but also
demonstrate the writer's understanding. People who understand something
deeply can express a complicated idea in plain English, because they
know how to reduce the idea to its essence. On the other hand, people
with a lack of understanding often try to hide their confusion behind
overly elaborate language.
"In 40 years of professional life, I've never read a document of more
than four pages that had any value."
As described above, good communication is focused and clear. Most
lengthy documents can be boiled down to include just the good
information hidden within too much text.
For the most part, executives should receive short documents with three
components:
1) the problem
2) potential solutions
3) the recommendation and why
"If the clients say the service is lousy, the service is lousy."
As usual, Sermier emphasized keeping the clients in mind. Fuzzy writing
can hide clients and their needs behind confusing metaphors, irrelevant
statistics, insignificant anecdotes, and more, which distracts people
from what should be a nonprofit's main purpose - serving clients. On
the other hand, clear writing can bring challenges to light so they can
be addressed.
"Don't waste people's time with spelling or grammatical errors."
Always read documents over before sharing them.
Showing posts with label Professor Ed Sermier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Professor Ed Sermier. Show all posts
Monday, April 5, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
NYNP blog post 3-22-10
The importance of evidence to serve clients well
Professor Sermier's Leadership and Strategy class last week focused on the use of evidence and data to manage better. Sermier emphasized that when setting goals, leaders need data - they need both accurate information and an understanding of why the data tells that story. With this data, leaders can get unexpectedly powerful results; without it, leaders can waste countless resources by sending organizations in useless, ineffective directions.
Sermier also encouraged the class to remember to focus on our clients. When doing so, data becomes framed as information in service of the clients, rather than simply being cold numbers. Therefore, Sermier suggested that leaders only request that someone do the hard work of providing accurate data if there's at least a 75% chance that the data will enable better decision-making to benefit clients.
Facts vs. opinions
To punctuate his point, Sermier referenced the following quote attributed to former Netscape CEO James Barksdale, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton in a Harvard Business Review article in January 2006: "If the decision is going to be made by the facts, then everyone's facts, as long as they are relevant, are equal. If the decision is going to be made on the basis of people's opinions, then mine count for a lot more."
Relevance for nonprofit trainers
In the same way, trainers need to focus on client-centered facts over opinions when designing training sessions. Session design should begin with a needs assessment that considers data, rather than with preconceived ideas and assumptions. Designing training based on evidence will allow trainers to develop staff in a way that meets clients' actual needs, and serving clients in this way is a real win for nonprofit trainers.
Professor Sermier's Leadership and Strategy class last week focused on the use of evidence and data to manage better. Sermier emphasized that when setting goals, leaders need data - they need both accurate information and an understanding of why the data tells that story. With this data, leaders can get unexpectedly powerful results; without it, leaders can waste countless resources by sending organizations in useless, ineffective directions.
Sermier also encouraged the class to remember to focus on our clients. When doing so, data becomes framed as information in service of the clients, rather than simply being cold numbers. Therefore, Sermier suggested that leaders only request that someone do the hard work of providing accurate data if there's at least a 75% chance that the data will enable better decision-making to benefit clients.
Facts vs. opinions
To punctuate his point, Sermier referenced the following quote attributed to former Netscape CEO James Barksdale, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton in a Harvard Business Review article in January 2006: "If the decision is going to be made by the facts, then everyone's facts, as long as they are relevant, are equal. If the decision is going to be made on the basis of people's opinions, then mine count for a lot more."
Relevance for nonprofit trainers
In the same way, trainers need to focus on client-centered facts over opinions when designing training sessions. Session design should begin with a needs assessment that considers data, rather than with preconceived ideas and assumptions. Designing training based on evidence will allow trainers to develop staff in a way that meets clients' actual needs, and serving clients in this way is a real win for nonprofit trainers.
NYNP blog post 3-17-10
A lesson for trainers from financial regulation
Last week was Public Affairs Week at Baruch College, and the Wednesday topic was New Directions in Financial Oversight, with Michael Alix and Jonathan Chanis, PhD.
Alix is a senior vice president at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, working in the Bank Supervision Group (although he noted that he was expressing his personal opinions); previously he served as the chief risk officer at Bear Stearns. Chanis is Managing Member of New Tide Asset Management, LLC, and has worked in finance, and emerging markets and commodities trading for over 20 years; he is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of The Energy Forum, and a trustee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
Both speakers said that they are in favor of well regulated financial markets, but they had different perspectives about what that means.
Chanis explained the difference between the "financial economy," which deals with managing money and credit, and the "real economy," which deals with actual goods and services. The financial economy is supposed to be an adjunct to the real economy. He explained that the economic crisis was triggered by problems in the financial economy which then impacted the real economy, and he suggested that we need to figure out the optimal size of the financial economy in order to prevent a recurrence of the crisis, because the financial economy had recently grown so much that its impact on the real economy was enormous. From there, we need to regulate the financial economy to prevent companies and people from making a profit by taking advantage of the government; for example, right now if a bank takes a risk and loses, the government bails them out and makes the taxpayers pay for it, but if a bank takes a risk and wins, they get to keep all the profit.
Alix appeared to be in favor of much looser regulations. He said that financial market reform has the goal of supervising the collective systemic risk from all institutions, rather than supervising individual institutions. He said that regulation requires redesigning "incentives, infrastructure, and insolvency regimes," and making information more transparent and accessible so that we can have insight.
Keeping it simple
In a breakout session afterwards, Professor Sermier pointed out that the message of the evening could be boiled down to the idea that it's not reasonable to expect human beings to operate against their own best interests. For example, at the individual level, if given a choice between making a lot of money quickly or not, most people will choose the money for themselves and their families, even if it's not the "right" thing to do because of a risk of contributing to a financial crisis. That's why we need the government to protect us from ourselves by establishing sensible regulations.
Takeaway for trainers
The idea of regulating the financial markets is about making people do the right thing even when it's easier or more tempting to do the wrong thing or to do nothing. Just telling people about the right thing will not change their behavior, so we need to do more.
In the same vein, just telling people about a desired workplace behavior will not make much of a difference. That's why training needs to go further - we need to motivate participants to improve or change, persuade participants about the value of the new skills, help participants practice new skills, let participants plan how they will use their new skills when they are back at their jobs, involve managers in supporting the change, and essentially help participants do the right thing on the job even when it's easier to or more familiar to do the wrong thing or nothing.
Last week was Public Affairs Week at Baruch College, and the Wednesday topic was New Directions in Financial Oversight, with Michael Alix and Jonathan Chanis, PhD.
Alix is a senior vice president at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, working in the Bank Supervision Group (although he noted that he was expressing his personal opinions); previously he served as the chief risk officer at Bear Stearns. Chanis is Managing Member of New Tide Asset Management, LLC, and has worked in finance, and emerging markets and commodities trading for over 20 years; he is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of The Energy Forum, and a trustee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
Both speakers said that they are in favor of well regulated financial markets, but they had different perspectives about what that means.
Chanis explained the difference between the "financial economy," which deals with managing money and credit, and the "real economy," which deals with actual goods and services. The financial economy is supposed to be an adjunct to the real economy. He explained that the economic crisis was triggered by problems in the financial economy which then impacted the real economy, and he suggested that we need to figure out the optimal size of the financial economy in order to prevent a recurrence of the crisis, because the financial economy had recently grown so much that its impact on the real economy was enormous. From there, we need to regulate the financial economy to prevent companies and people from making a profit by taking advantage of the government; for example, right now if a bank takes a risk and loses, the government bails them out and makes the taxpayers pay for it, but if a bank takes a risk and wins, they get to keep all the profit.
Alix appeared to be in favor of much looser regulations. He said that financial market reform has the goal of supervising the collective systemic risk from all institutions, rather than supervising individual institutions. He said that regulation requires redesigning "incentives, infrastructure, and insolvency regimes," and making information more transparent and accessible so that we can have insight.
Keeping it simple
In a breakout session afterwards, Professor Sermier pointed out that the message of the evening could be boiled down to the idea that it's not reasonable to expect human beings to operate against their own best interests. For example, at the individual level, if given a choice between making a lot of money quickly or not, most people will choose the money for themselves and their families, even if it's not the "right" thing to do because of a risk of contributing to a financial crisis. That's why we need the government to protect us from ourselves by establishing sensible regulations.
Takeaway for trainers
The idea of regulating the financial markets is about making people do the right thing even when it's easier or more tempting to do the wrong thing or to do nothing. Just telling people about the right thing will not change their behavior, so we need to do more.
In the same vein, just telling people about a desired workplace behavior will not make much of a difference. That's why training needs to go further - we need to motivate participants to improve or change, persuade participants about the value of the new skills, help participants practice new skills, let participants plan how they will use their new skills when they are back at their jobs, involve managers in supporting the change, and essentially help participants do the right thing on the job even when it's easier to or more familiar to do the wrong thing or nothing.
NYNP blog post 3-10-10
Six career tips from two experienced public servants
Last week's Leadership and Strategy class featured guest speaker Dall Forsythe, Professor of Practice at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service and former budget director for the State of New York under Governor Mario Cuomo. Forsythe and Professor Sermier were colleagues at the NYC Board of Education under Chancellor Frank Macchiarola. They discussed their experiences with leadership in government and also shared concrete career advice.
Three career tips for the short term
Forsythe shared three career tips for young professionals interested in public service:
1) Be able to communicate well both with words and with numbers. Governor Cuomo used to say the following when hiring a candidate with little experience: "What's the difference? He's smart and he can write well."
2) Understand politics.
3) Consider working in a budget office. They are great places to work - you learn a lot, you gain skills, and you gain professional credibility.
Three reasons to find your passion in the long term
Sermier shared three reasons to find your professional passion:
1) If you are ambitious and want big opportunities in your career, you need to develop the right skills and a good reputation; this requires actually doing the work well over time, which requires passion.
2) To be a good leader, you must display optimism, and in order to do that during tough times or amidst irritations, you need to work at a job you value, so that the small stuff is irrelevant to your fulfillment.
3) If you work at something you enjoy, you won't need to make a lot of money because you won't be obsessed with retiring.
Last week's Leadership and Strategy class featured guest speaker Dall Forsythe, Professor of Practice at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service and former budget director for the State of New York under Governor Mario Cuomo. Forsythe and Professor Sermier were colleagues at the NYC Board of Education under Chancellor Frank Macchiarola. They discussed their experiences with leadership in government and also shared concrete career advice.
Three career tips for the short term
Forsythe shared three career tips for young professionals interested in public service:
1) Be able to communicate well both with words and with numbers. Governor Cuomo used to say the following when hiring a candidate with little experience: "What's the difference? He's smart and he can write well."
2) Understand politics.
3) Consider working in a budget office. They are great places to work - you learn a lot, you gain skills, and you gain professional credibility.
Three reasons to find your passion in the long term
Sermier shared three reasons to find your professional passion:
1) If you are ambitious and want big opportunities in your career, you need to develop the right skills and a good reputation; this requires actually doing the work well over time, which requires passion.
2) To be a good leader, you must display optimism, and in order to do that during tough times or amidst irritations, you need to work at a job you value, so that the small stuff is irrelevant to your fulfillment.
3) If you work at something you enjoy, you won't need to make a lot of money because you won't be obsessed with retiring.
NYNP blog post 3-1-10
Sermier's ten steps for managing and leading
During last week's Leadership and Strategy class, Professor Sermier shared his sequential ten-point framework for managing and leading an organization:
1) Know yourself
2) Know your boss or bosses
3) Know your key executives and staff
4) Terminate non-productive executives
5) Identify your key stakeholders and what each wants
6) Identify your five major problems
7) Identify your five major goals
8) Communicate your major goals
9) Actively pursue your goals
10) Celebrate your successes
The first step is to know yourself, because until you can manage yourself and get comfortable with yourself, you won't be able to manage anything else.
Additional dimensions: focusing on clients and motivating teams via respect
Sermier shared a perspective of leadership as essentially including everything involved in management, with an added dimension of doing the right thing. In nonprofits, doing the right thing means keeping your clients in focus at all times, and making sure that the focus on clients guides decision-making.
For many nonprofit staff, that focus on clients will be inspiring. However, that's not all that's needed to motivate and lead a team. To motivate people, you must show them respect, and because that's a vague concept, Sermier clarified what it looks like to do so:
* Learn and remember names
* Never complain
* Make your team members look good
* Publicly support your team when the stakes are high
* Publicly take the heat for the team's mistakes
* Use "we" when talking about problems, to signal that you see solving problems as a team effort
* Be hopeful within reason; give your team a sense that there's a better future
* Accomplish things together, then celebrate together
* Encourage dissent
* Hold yourself accountable, and admit mistakes
* Give credit and praise
* Be guided by a moral compass
During last week's Leadership and Strategy class, Professor Sermier shared his sequential ten-point framework for managing and leading an organization:
1) Know yourself
2) Know your boss or bosses
3) Know your key executives and staff
4) Terminate non-productive executives
5) Identify your key stakeholders and what each wants
6) Identify your five major problems
7) Identify your five major goals
8) Communicate your major goals
9) Actively pursue your goals
10) Celebrate your successes
The first step is to know yourself, because until you can manage yourself and get comfortable with yourself, you won't be able to manage anything else.
Additional dimensions: focusing on clients and motivating teams via respect
Sermier shared a perspective of leadership as essentially including everything involved in management, with an added dimension of doing the right thing. In nonprofits, doing the right thing means keeping your clients in focus at all times, and making sure that the focus on clients guides decision-making.
For many nonprofit staff, that focus on clients will be inspiring. However, that's not all that's needed to motivate and lead a team. To motivate people, you must show them respect, and because that's a vague concept, Sermier clarified what it looks like to do so:
* Learn and remember names
* Never complain
* Make your team members look good
* Publicly support your team when the stakes are high
* Publicly take the heat for the team's mistakes
* Use "we" when talking about problems, to signal that you see solving problems as a team effort
* Be hopeful within reason; give your team a sense that there's a better future
* Accomplish things together, then celebrate together
* Encourage dissent
* Hold yourself accountable, and admit mistakes
* Give credit and praise
* Be guided by a moral compass
NYNP blog post 2-21-10
Advice for career success
Find a job where you fit, you care, and you accomplish with a team you respect
Last week's Leadership and Strategy class (see my post from 2.3.10 for more info) focused on understanding how organizations work, in order to make good decisions.
Professor Sermier led us through a comparison of the private, nonprofit, and government sectors using the following lenses:
1) The bottom line
2) The complexity of processes
3) How success is defined and measured
4) The value of evidence vs. the value of opinion when making decisions
5) The role of competition
6) How CEOs are evaluated
7) The impact of the press
Career advice
Sermier, whose career has included jobs in each of the sectors, shared the advice that in order to give ourselves the best possible chance to succeed in our careers, we need to choose the right sector, the right part of the sector (for nonprofits, that means social service, cultural, university, foundations, or health care), the right size organization, and the right organizational culture and structure. Perhaps most importantly, we need to find the right fit for our passions, because it's difficult to succeed at something that we don't care about.
Whatever the sector, when we've chosen a job, it can be helpful to keep our thinking simple and remember that any organization is basically a bunch of people trying to get something done together. With that in mind, some keys to success at work include:
* treating people fairly
* encouraging enough dissent to know that you're doing the right thing
* setting up rewards for doing well and penalties for doing poorly
* creating a common statement about what you're trying to accomplish as a group
* avoiding creating too many rules, while at the same time establishing basic systems that help people understand their common interest
Find a job where you fit, you care, and you accomplish with a team you respect
Last week's Leadership and Strategy class (see my post from 2.3.10 for more info) focused on understanding how organizations work, in order to make good decisions.
Professor Sermier led us through a comparison of the private, nonprofit, and government sectors using the following lenses:
1) The bottom line
2) The complexity of processes
3) How success is defined and measured
4) The value of evidence vs. the value of opinion when making decisions
5) The role of competition
6) How CEOs are evaluated
7) The impact of the press
Career advice
Sermier, whose career has included jobs in each of the sectors, shared the advice that in order to give ourselves the best possible chance to succeed in our careers, we need to choose the right sector, the right part of the sector (for nonprofits, that means social service, cultural, university, foundations, or health care), the right size organization, and the right organizational culture and structure. Perhaps most importantly, we need to find the right fit for our passions, because it's difficult to succeed at something that we don't care about.
Whatever the sector, when we've chosen a job, it can be helpful to keep our thinking simple and remember that any organization is basically a bunch of people trying to get something done together. With that in mind, some keys to success at work include:
* treating people fairly
* encouraging enough dissent to know that you're doing the right thing
* setting up rewards for doing well and penalties for doing poorly
* creating a common statement about what you're trying to accomplish as a group
* avoiding creating too many rules, while at the same time establishing basic systems that help people understand their common interest
NYNP blog post 2-3-10
"Doing things right" versus "Doing the right thing"
A simple differentiation between management and leadership
Tonight was the first night of Ed Sermier's Leadership and Strategy course at Baruch College's School of Public Affairs, which I'm excited to be taking this semester with many of the United Way Senior Fellows from my cohort in 2008. The course will be examining the concepts of leadership, management, and strategy in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Since a lot of trainings focus on leadership development, I'll share some of the insights from this semester here in this blog, as there will be many relevant takeaways for nonprofit trainers.
One thought-provoking takeaway from tonight's class was Sermier's description of the difference between management and leadership: management is about doing things right, and leadership is about doing the right thing. This means that managers focus on efficiency, which is essentially about making existing processes better, whereas leaders focus on effectiveness, which includes thinking about the existing picture and making changes if something should be different in order to be right. Because leaders need to understand the existing picture in order to think critically about it, they need to have a strong understanding of management.
Sermier asked the class to remember that in nonprofits, an important part of being a leader and doing the right thing is helping people who have the least power -- our clients -- especially when the people who do have power lose sight of them.
A simple differentiation between management and leadership
Tonight was the first night of Ed Sermier's Leadership and Strategy course at Baruch College's School of Public Affairs, which I'm excited to be taking this semester with many of the United Way Senior Fellows from my cohort in 2008. The course will be examining the concepts of leadership, management, and strategy in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Since a lot of trainings focus on leadership development, I'll share some of the insights from this semester here in this blog, as there will be many relevant takeaways for nonprofit trainers.
One thought-provoking takeaway from tonight's class was Sermier's description of the difference between management and leadership: management is about doing things right, and leadership is about doing the right thing. This means that managers focus on efficiency, which is essentially about making existing processes better, whereas leaders focus on effectiveness, which includes thinking about the existing picture and making changes if something should be different in order to be right. Because leaders need to understand the existing picture in order to think critically about it, they need to have a strong understanding of management.
Sermier asked the class to remember that in nonprofits, an important part of being a leader and doing the right thing is helping people who have the least power -- our clients -- especially when the people who do have power lose sight of them.
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