Dos --Eipihany - Growing a Backbone

Eipihany - That "ah ha" moment when you feel you have found the last piece of the puzzle and now see the whole picture.

This is in thanks to Carolyn of Iowa, who rather dramatically drew out their board's organizational structure around the thick trunk of a plant --- and it struck me that the trunk is the backbone, and nourishment travels up and down the trunk from the roots to the leaves and from the leaves to the roots. But if something happens to the trunk -- if that backbone of the tree is injured there is a grave chance of death, or stunted growth or lingering poor health.

We need to grow backbones for our boards --- for the organizational leadership. In my work with nonprofit boards the element that begins to erode over time and neglect is their backbone . Organizational structure is the backbone of strong leaderhsip and capacity to meet mission and purpose.

A strong backbone ensures that the inner workings of the nonprofit are protected from harm, that there is flexibility in difficult times and a capacity to build resources and store nourishment during good weather and seasons.

A backbone keeps us honest. It stores and feeds knowledge throughout our entire blood and nerve system. If the backbone is severed we either die, become paralysed or if we are lucky, through rehabilitation, which may take years, we are brought back to functioning, partial or nearly full. But we are never quite the same again.

When we go long periods of ignoring this backbone, when we find ourselves actually relieved that our boards have not grown backbones, then we are acting rashly and without responsibliity to our organization.

Let's start building our backbones!

12 Ways to Save the World ---- UNO

Read one book this month --- I'd like to say this week but my hopefulness does not extend to being wildly optimistic. So read a book this month to change the future of your organization, to save the future.

Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipfer, the newest book from the author of Reviving Ophelia and The Middle of Everywhere. I'm half way through and excited, because Mary is challenging me, my mind, my thought process. She is reminding me that most of us humans do not use 10% of our brains during the day, and maybe only 5% at night.

She is reminding me of a truism I remember occasionally, and what many folks experience through meditation, that we are not using out time wisely, we are not thinking deeply, we are not contemplating the world around us, under us and through which we are traveling for the most part like sleep walkers. We need to do this.

Do this now. Read a book that sounds like it could help you as a person be more effective, be more caring, be healthier, and believe me when I tell you that it will help you in your work as a decision maker for your organization.

Read stories, listen to stories, consider how we use this oldest form of communication, captured thousands and thousands of years ago on cave walls and stone etchings. The why comes long after understanding the "what".

I am balancing my reading this week between Mary's Writing to Change the World and Karen Armstrong's A Brief History of Myth. Are these primers in business management? Do they say "read this to learn what type of leader you are" or "thirty-second elevator speeches"? No.

But believe me, we have to first go back to learning to really think, contemplate, before we can benefit from 30 second speeches. Because hopefully someone is going to ask you a lot more about your organization after that 30 seconds. And you want to interest them, you want them to become really interested. And you need to be interesting yourself.