Microscope or Telescope

Last week’s post offered a leadership lesson about the importance of perspective—seeing the world from 10,000 feet or at ground-level. Today’s musing will put a slightly different spin on the same general theme of perspective. It is inspired by some of the work I did this week with a nonprofit board.

Over the years I have encountered many different leaders and worked with a variety of clients. I have found that the nonprofit community and the boards that lead these institutions rarely assess their own performance. Perhaps the need to maintain funding streams and retain competent staff simply distract these organizational leaders from the important work of board development. Complacency could be another factor as many nonprofits expect little of their board members except to show up for meetings and write checks.

As competition for money intensifies and the number of persons needing services grows there will be more pressure on nonprofits to produce measurable outcomes. In other words, how is the community or your clients better off as a result of your work? That question can’t be answered effectively unless the board knows how to view its own work and the needs of the broader population it serves. Thus my reference to microscopes and telescopes.

A microscope is used to identify what can’t be seen with the naked eye. In a board context this metaphor applies to the important work of assessing performance at an agency and board level. Programs can’t be effective without regularly reviewing who is being served, how efficiently the services are being delivered, and how well those receiving the services are able to improve their lives as a result of your intervention. Boards can’t be effective if they ignore the poor performance of individual members, if they don’t hold each other accountable, or if they spend all their time trying to fix problems.

A telescope serves a much different purpose. It uses focused light to find remote objects that may be millions of miles away. A nonprofit also needs to regularly examine the larger world in which it functions. Unknown competitors, unseen funding streams, and hidden opportunities for collaboration are everywhere in the universe but may go unnoticed without a telescopic perspective. Likewise, boards should spend more time making sense of the trends, issues, and challenges facing their organization. If they never pause to look outside the boardroom their view of reality will be short-sided at best.

No capital investment is required to apply these concepts in your nonprofit or in the work of for-profit business leaders. Without self-assessment and sense-making every organization and leader risks losing sight of new realities as they develop. What you see when these techniques are employed is only the beginning. How you respond will determine if the view has really be understood.