Comments on: Thoughts on Nonprofit growth, management and culture http://www.island94.org/2009/02/thoughts-on-nonprofit-growth-management-and-culture/ Ben Sheldon's lost & found Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:05:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Thaddeus Figlock http://www.island94.org/2009/02/thoughts-on-nonprofit-growth-management-and-culture/#comment-3988 Thaddeus Figlock Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:23:58 +0000 http://www.island94.org/?p=502#comment-3988 Ben, I met you today at the Idealist Career event in Boston. Looking up your LinkedIn profile, I came across your blog, and I have to say, this is very interesting. You appear to broach two topics. One is that there is sometimes a disconnect between a group with a wonderful vision of outward mission and the internal peer to peer or leader-associate work environment not living up to the same type of ideals. The other topic appears to be imposing a corporate MBA style of organizational development upon smaller, more organic body of organization for the sake of progress. My background is a hybrid of experiences with not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. The 3 Fortune 500 companies I've been a part of love to talk about being an inverted pyramid or being a grouping of empowered "associates." Values and relationships are part of their vocabulary; they see the importance for such principles, if just to maintain a connection with their customers or employees. I agree it is harder to keep these ideas alive with authenticity as groups grow larger and more cumbersome. But it is still an ideal at whatever stage of growth an organization is at. Likewise, getting back to the first aspect of your conversation, the sound principles of human resource management large companies have developed could help the smaller organizations balance outward mission and inward environment. Hope I'm catching where your conversation is leading. Thanks for the dialogue. Sincerely, Thaddeus Ben,
I met you today at the Idealist Career event in Boston. Looking up your LinkedIn profile, I came across your blog, and I have to say, this is very interesting.

You appear to broach two topics. One is that there is sometimes a disconnect between a group with a wonderful vision of outward mission and the internal peer to peer or leader-associate work environment not living up to the same type of ideals. The other topic appears to be imposing a corporate MBA style of organizational development upon smaller, more organic body of organization for the sake of progress.

My background is a hybrid of experiences with not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. The 3 Fortune 500 companies I’ve been a part of love to talk about being an inverted pyramid or being a grouping of empowered “associates.” Values and relationships are part of their vocabulary; they see the importance for such principles, if just to maintain a connection with their customers or employees. I agree it is harder to keep these ideas alive with authenticity as groups grow larger and more cumbersome. But it is still an ideal at whatever stage of growth an organization is at. Likewise, getting back to the first aspect of your conversation, the sound principles of human resource management large companies have developed could help the smaller organizations balance outward mission and inward environment.

Hope I’m catching where your conversation is leading. Thanks for the dialogue.

Sincerely,

Thaddeus

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