A summary of things you should know about The Social Profit Handbook according to David Grant: Introduction In this episode David Grant takes a deep dive into his book, TheRead More
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]]>In this episode David Grant takes a deep dive into his book, The Social Profit Handbook, where he shares a guide to setting goals, assessing outcomes, and achieving success for mission-driven organizations.
In his book Grant provides proven, actionable strategies that help low-profit and non-profit organizations take charge of their operations in order to improve their future. The goal of the book is to teach you how to create assessment rubrics, develop a solid social business plan, properly measure your success, and effectively set attainable goals.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are in the business of creating social change and want to know what it takes to create an efficiently run mission-based organization.
I think the book is quite different in that it’s written by somebody who actually doesn’t care that much about the science of measurement. I have great respect for people who do but I am much more interested in the whole idea of assessment as a tool than I am as an end in itself. My whole interest is not in measurement but in what is being measured and that is to say in this case social profit. The world is full of people chasing financial profit and the world needs more people who are interested in social profit.
I wrote it to be read from front to back.
I think my phrase would be the power of rubric writing in mission time.
I spend the introduction and chapter one asking the question if this is worth your time. I am trying to let people know that this is a book about questions of assessment but I’ve got a bigger purpose in mind and that is the social profit that the world needs.
Chapters two, three, and four are about mindset and assumptions. I think if we start thinking differently about assessment and have different practices we will not only create more social profit but also be happier in our workplace. Chapter two is about measurement itself. We live in an age of metrics and we live in an age of outcomes measurement and people are constantly asking for numbers but we know that not everything yields itself to numbers. I suggest that we should open ourselves to quantitative measure and if we don’t have a standard measure for something we actually have to create it.
Chapter four is called Mission Time which is a key idea in the book that is based on my twelve years of running the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation where I time and again talked to leaders in the social sector and none of them took enough time with colleagues to reflect on how they were doing. I make the case of mission time and building an end an organization and thereby really changing the culture of the place.
All of that leads me to chapter five which is the central chapter of the book and it’s called The Art of the Rubric. The rubric is a qualitative assessment tool; it’s everywhere in education and hardly anywhere in the social sector. It’s a matrix where down one side you have criteria for success and along the other side you’ve got levels of performance in relation to those criteria. It’s infinitely expandable and it gives you time to use words as well as numbers to describe what success looks like at these different levels. This chapter is part of a workshop that I have given for years about how to think about rubric and how to design them. By the time you are at the end of this chapter it is my hope that you are fired up to start working with your colleagues on writing some rubrics.
Chapter six is practical advice on rubric design and I shift from teacher to coach in this chapter because I know the problems you are going to bump in to.
Chapters seven, eight, and nine are examples of organizations that have gotten together, sat around a table, and used rubrics to create qualitative assessment tools that have changed their work. I start with individual organizations that are kind of small and by the time I’m in chapter nine I am describing entire systems where people all over the country have come together to write rubrics.
The last chapter is called Changing Our Minds and Cultures and it asks the question of what gets in the way of this work. You can have the best ideas in the world but you can’t actually bring them to life unless you create an atmosphere in the workplace where people can come together with clarity about what it is they do, what they don’t do, what they value, and what success would look like.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:32
“The first value of the rubric was that it pushed us to think more clearly and more deeply about what we were trying to accomplish.” – Unknown
I have had a career split between two fields, the first half was in education and I was an English teacher. Then I had the opportunity to start and found a school in Vermont called The Mountain School which was the first of the whole series of semester plans which now exist around the country. From there I became president of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in New Jersey.
When I came in to the foundation world I leaning towards the question who needs to learn what here. I ended up working very closely with the executive directors and the board chairs of the nonprofit organizations that the Dodge Foundation funded. What started with a couple afternoon sessions became a full blown course in leadership. The real incentive to write the book was that after these workshops, time and again, people told me that I had to write a book.
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
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]]>A Quick Look at 5 of the Latest Books for Entrepreneurs The Entrepreneurs Library presents some of the latest books for entrepreneurs in March 2015. These books are brand newRead More
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]]>The Entrepreneurs Library presents some of the latest books for entrepreneurs in March 2015. These books are brand new to the market and the authors are in line to give a thorough deep dive of their books. Stay tuned this month for the release of the interviews with these great books and their authors.
Based on extensive research, Entrepreneurship for the Rest of Us reveals the best practices of the most successful entrepreneurs, those who are adept at continually innovating and seeing opportunity where others do not.
What works for the most successful entrepreneurs will work for us, Brown argues, whether we want to stay employed working for someone else or are thinking of going off on our own. Though of course we won’t all start or run our own companies, we need to learn to think like entrepreneurs so that when uncertainty hits, as it will again and again, individuals and companies will be better prepared to not only survive but win.
In short, the entrepreneurial mindset is a protection against economic uncertainty, and Brown’s goal is to spread that thinking to individuals and large organizations alike.
“I believe entrepreneurship has to the power to go a long way toward providing the future we as individuals and corporate businesspeople aspire to have. Innately, we are all entrepreneurs, but too few of us get to practice it. Entrepreneurship for the Rest of Us can help change that.” – Leonard A. Schlesinger, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School
“In searching for ways to become more innovative, there is no better role model than successful entrepreneurs—people, who by definition, have created something that did not exist before. In Entrepreneurship for the Rest of Us, Paul B. Brown explains simply and in detail how they think so we can learn from their success. Everyone from Fortune 100 executives to potential entrepreneurs can benefit.” – Andrea Coville, president and CEO, Brodeur Partners
Learn more about Paul B Brown | Buy Entrepreneurship for the Rest of Us on Amazon
The Social Profit Handbook presents assessment and evaluation not as ends in themselves but as the path toward achieving what matters most in the social sector. The result: more benefits to society and stronger, more unified, more effective organizations prepared to make the world a better place.
The Social Profit Handbook offers those who lead, govern, and support mission-driven organizations and businesses new ways to assess their impact in order to improve future work rather than merely judge past performance.
David Grant’s insights, illustrated by numerous case studies, make this book a unique organizational development tool for a wide range of nonprofit organizations, as well as emerging mission-based social venture businesses, such as low-profit corporations and B Corps.
“For many years, David Grant has helped our organization create firm foundations for new projects and initiatives through the principles outlined in this excellent roadmap for rethinking success. At last his guidance and wisdom are available to anyone fortunate enough to come across this book.”– Robert Lynch, President and CEO, Americans for the Arts
“Anyone in the business of improving lives—whether they spend their days in government or in mission-driven organizations—can benefit from this simple, elegant, and incisive guide to having not just more impact, but also the right impact. David Grant has produced a book that belongs on the shelves of every political and social leader interested in translating goals to successes.”– Peter Welch, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives
Learn more about David Grant | Buy The Social Profit Handbook on Amazon
Both scientifically sophisticated and fun to read, Seeing What Others Don’t shows that insight is not just a “eureka!” moment but a whole new way of understanding.
Gary Klein is a keen observer of people in their natural settings—scientists, businesspeople, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, family members, friends, himself—and uses a marvelous variety of stories to illuminate his research into what insights are and how they happen.
We also need insights into the everyday things that frustrate and confuse us so that we can more effectively solve problems and get things done. Yet we know very little about when, why, or how insights are formed—or what blocks them. In Seeing What Others Don’t Klein unravels the mystery.
“His analysis of how Google searches and corporate culture inhibit insight is intriguing, while suggestions for improving the chances of having a breakthrough are practical and useful for many facets of life.” —Publishers Weekly
“No one has taught me more about the complexities and mysteries of human decision-making than Gary Klein.” — Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers
Learn more about Gary Klein | Buy Seeing What Others Don’t on Amazon
Nice Guys Finish First provides stories, lessons, concrete takeaways and action items. The reader will go beyond finding out why nice guys finish first and discover how to be successful using the lessons provided.
In order to win relationships in today’s business climate, you must first understand the importance of having systems in place to provide exemplary service, making people a priority over products, putting the client experience at the top of the list and valuing relationships over technology.
The book walks the reader along a path to becoming a student of Sandler’s system: Invest, Inspire and Execute. The chapters break the system down into smaller pieces, guiding the reader through practical application and lessons about leadership, technology, consistency, trust and empowerment.
“Doug Sandler has written an inspiring, well structured, easy to read book that is a success system for life in general and not just for your business. Readers will appreciate the practical examples and end of chapter action items.” — John Watson, author of The Ultimate Guide to Consulting in the Networked Age
Learn more about Doug Sandler | Buy Nice Guys Finish First on Amazon
Despite the proliferation of people engaging in freelance and contract work, however, the path to success is not always easy. Free Agent: The Independent Professional’s Roadmap to Self-Employment Success details a pragmatic action plan to help you succeed in this new skills marketplace.
Supplying practical strategies to help you get ahead of the change and become an in-demand resource with a steady stream of income, the book describes how work is changing and what is driving the growth of freelancing. Next, it explains how to get your new independent venture off the ground, how to find your first client, and what you need to know to avoid common pitfalls.
Detailing the tools and practices that will enable you to succeed as a free agent, the book includes case studies and interviews with those who have already made the transition. The book concludes by describing how to optimize your new freelance work style to make the most of your time and energy, so you can focus on doing more of what you love.
Learn more about Katy Tynan | Buy Free Agent: The Independent Professional’s Roadmap to Self-Employment Success on Amazon
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