Adapting Strategic Plans

Even if you aren’t a visionary leader or a visionary organization, one of the easiest things you can do to make people on the outside think that you are is to create a strategic plan.

The process of writing it can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be. Meeting after meeting, consensus building after consensus building, fight, cry, pray and then emerge from the process with a one year, five year and ten year strategic plan.

I am not anti processes like this. In fact, when I arrived, Feed The Children had a strategic plan that they’d worked diligently on for quite awhile. I appreciated its thoughtfulness and passion for success. This plan did a great job in many ways of steering our big ship in a more fruitful direction.

But, from where I sit and the experiences of leadership that I’ve had thus far in my career, I have come to see a lack of execution as a real hindrance to an organization. For so many times I’ve seen organizations reach the point of creation of a 10 year plan and then feel like it is an invitation to rest on the confidence of the plan– without making leaps and bounds toward what is actually in the plan. So easily strategic plans can be placed on a shelf somewhere gathering dust while the organization continues on in a pattern of status quo.

I don’t want Feed The Children to be one of these organizations. I want us to be vibrant. I want us to challenge the status quo. I want us to be known as an organization that executes our plan well.

This is why when I arrived on the scene 18 months, I listened. Then, as a leadership team we evaluated the current strengths and failures of our organization. And then we took a time out and devoted some of our key energy toward re-writing our plan. Our new strategic plan is in tune with where I know Feed The Children is destined to go. Our new strategic plan is an active document that we are seeking to live into more each day.

I believe this is what adaptive leadership is all about.

We evaluate our assets, our strengths and our downright pitfalls so that our plans are not just strategic, but relevant.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

Leadership is as much about having the right ideas as it is being able to adapt to new ones.

Leadership is as much about projecting toward to the future as it is understanding the present.

Leadership is as much about making plans as it actually following through with them.

I’m glad I’m a life-long learner of leadership and that there’s not just one plan.

New Thoughts for the New Year

New Year’s Day will be here so soon!

It’s that time of year when we all seek to sit down and make resolutions. We seek to get our financial life in order. We want to lose weight. We want to be better people.

I am not the kind of guy who often makes resolutions. Not that I am against them or those who do, but I rarely follow through with some lofty self-improvement goal that rolls off my tongue on December 31. So years ago, I just stopped. Now I just try to live the way I know I ought to live every day of the year. Sometimes I fail miserably. Other times I do pretty good.

G.K Chesterton said: “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.”

I loved this quote when I first read it for two reasons.

First, it speaks to the fact that there is nothing overtly magical about the ticking of the clock towards 12:01am on New Year’s Day. Yes, it’s great to stop and celebrate, to have a good time with friends and family. But, in the end, New Year’s is not that big of deal. It’s just another moment, another day, and another opportunity to breathe with thanksgiving for the gift of life. We are lucky to have so many of these moments through the year.

Second, I love the idea that Chesterton speaks of transformation. To truly be the “better people” that many of us crave to be, we have to allow something greater than ourselves (and I call this God in my own life) to change us– to give us a new soul, a new nose, a new backbone, new ears and new eyes.

Simply put, we have to see the world differently.

Over the course of 2013, I have had many opportunities through my work with Feed The Children to see the world with a new perspective.

I’ve met girls like Karen in Honduras who must go through the trash every day in order to earn her family a few dollars to live on. And though she misses school, she goes in later and gets the class assignments she missed from her teachers in an attempt to get the education that she hopes will lift her and her family out of poverty.

I’ve met child care workers like those who run our orphange in Kenya who love and care for the children under their care as if they birthed these babies themselves.

I’ve met boys like Oscar who our country staff calls “Kevin 2” although we are no blood relation– there is something about his spirit that has captured mine and vice versa.

And through these experiences I am slowly and gradually changing.

This year I bought fewer Christmas gifts for those who really don’t need the excess and I gave more away.

This year as I sat around the Christmas table with my family, I couldn’t help but remember my larger family (and children!) around the world.

This year when late nights at work and piles on my desk sought to stress me out, I took a moment and remembered why I am working so hard– for the children– and I carried on.

I’m sure 2014 has much more to teach me and I am ready. New Years resolutions or not, 2014, here I come!

What I Saw in Honduras and Nicaragua

Last week, the Feed The Children Christmas tour continued as Elizabeth and I packed our bags for Central America.

We went to see the field programs that seek to feed children, provide better opportunities for education and livelihood development– many of which I had seen before (in Honduras last December) and in Nicaragua (which I had not). We went to share Christmas gifts with the kids in our programs on behalf of the rest of the staff in Oklahoma. We went to do what we could to encourage the good work of our field staff in these countries.

[As an aside, Elizabeth when she travels with me pays her own way to go. She is so excited about the work and mission of Feed The Children that she currently volunteers her time to support the work of our communications department and build relationships with staff as I travel. She recently wrote about what this experience has been like for her in case you are curious here].

As we rose at early hours in the day and traveled down bumpy roads and drove up the hill seeking to not get stuck in the mud in other communities, I couldn’t help but think about how great our reach is an organization.

I know I share the statistic all the time that we feed over 352,000 kids every school day. It sounds like a nice number. It is a big number (but of course I think we could feed more). But, when you begin to see with your eyes what this work looks like as I have in back to back trips over the past three weeks on multiple continents, you can’t help but say wow.

In the past at FTC, we haven’t been as upfront as we should have been about our international field work. There has been more that we should have done to communicate the message of who we are and who we are serving to our staff in Oklahoma as well as our donors. But, it is a new day and a new conversation. And I am here to tell you, I am so pleased at what I see going on in Honduras and Nicaragua.

I saw children in a Honduran community, where the major income producer is collecting trash for recycling, coming to school with TOMS shoes on them (distributed by FTC) eager to learn.

I saw children in FTC’s care at Casa del Nino (a boy’s home for ages 5-18) in Honduras who were among some of the most well-behaved boys I’ve ever met with hearts wide open to love and give back to those in need in their community.

I saw children in a Nicaraguan community with mothers who so desperately want a better life for their families that they’ll come to parenting class and spend time learning out to bake bread in our community development center that they can sell to their neighbors.

I saw so much poverty. I saw so many dirty faces. I saw so many babies who needed their diapers changed.

But, I saw so much hope: hope that our field staff is bringing to these communities everyday.

It’s hope that looks like a hug, going the extra mile to enroll one of the children in one of our programs, and the look of delight when a child gets a plate full of rice, vegetables, and chicken.

I know Christmas is days away– but for me, my heart is already full. I’ve had my Christmas. Honduras and Nicaragua were places that brought the icing on the cake that Kenya made for us weeks ago.

I’m so proud to lead this team. And, in you should be proud of one another too.

Waiting With Hope

This week, I contributed to my wife’s Advent devotional project called Baby Jesus Blog. She and her friends have been sharing birth stories all month long and here is mine:

People say that I’m a pretty optimistic person. Though I can make a good “worst case scenario” checklist, I always tend to fight for the most positive outcome. I really think in the end everything is going to turn out fine.

And this is my story. Growing up, I knew one day I’d get married and I always knew one day I’d like to be a father.

I grew up with some of the most amazing parents a child could hope for. Why would I not follow in their footsteps one day? I’ve had amazing relationships with my nieces and nephews through the years and would like to imagine that I served as a positive role model for them. Why not have my own kids? I knew I had a lot of love to give and I also knew I could be a great dad.

To read more click here.

Happy Advent to all my Christian friends out there!

Kenya on My Mind

Two days ago I returned from my second trip to Kenya since I’ve been President of Feed The Children. It was another wonderful adventure.

While there were countless business meetings and other official activities to attend, what I enjoyed most was the time spent with the children at the Dagoretti Children’s Center in Nairobi, an orphange we run for about 100 kids.

Different from our other programs around the world, the Kenyan kids are our own! Once these kids enter our care, they are ours for life (unless they are adopted or reunited with family somehow). Many of them were either dropped off at our doorstep or left in hospital rooms by parents who no longer felt they could take care of them as babies. Some lost their parents in terrorist attacks. Some of our toddlers were found in trash heaps. Many of them have special needs. All of them just want to be seen. As I greeted each one, what mattered was not the color of my skin or my country of my origin. Rather, what they wanted from me (and all their caregivers) is to know that they were loved.

As a received big hugs and warm smiles from babies, teens and even from our group home of young adult men, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “I have the best job in the world.” Though the circumstances that brought each of the children to the center were harsh and most of all unjust (every child deserves the right to grow up in a loving family!), to see each of the kids thrive was the spiritual jolt my soul needed.

It’s easy in a line of work like this, especially in an organization where transformation is the name of our game plan, to get bogged down and discouraged. It’s easy to forget why we work so hard. It’s easy to not say prayers of thanksgiving. The challenges can sometimes outweigh the feelings of blessings. However, as much as I went to be with and serve the kids last week in Kenya, I need to declare that they served me!

As I muse about all of this today with Kenya still on my mind, I am grateful for the encouragement I received in Kenya last week.

My wife and I often talked about what our eyes saw and our ears heard last week. We couldn’t help but think about the scripture where Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

In Kenya last week, we saw so many of the faces of God. And for this, even as I’ve settled back into the harshness of winter in the US, I say thank you, Kenya.

One Book at a Time

For those of you who know me well, you know that I’m not the kind of person who sits down and reads long books for pleasure.

I enjoy keeping up with the latest business and political news online and in magazine form, but I’ve never seemed to have the attention span for books. I get bored easily.

Often when my wife wants to me to read something she’ll give up waiting on me to do it on my own and just read it to me.

But all of this to say, I still value the importance of a good book. There have been books I remember from my childhood that shaped my becoming when I was in school such as the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein or made me laugh like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett.

I never remember a time in my education when books weren’t a part of my classroom experience. Or even as I studied in college and graduate school, a time when I couldn’t afford the necessary materials to read the assigned texts (thank goodness for student loans!)

But for many of the children we serve in our Feed The Children programs around the world, books are a rare and special gift. Classroom walls in the developing country aren’t lined with bookshelves. Often if students have books they are tattered, torn and can not leave the school grounds.

In May, while on a site visit to a Mayan community in Guatemala, our team gave each child in our program a new book from our friends at Disney. It was a joy to watch the light come into the eyes of the kids, many of whom had not ever had a book at all to call their own much less NEW!

Then, just this week in the middle of the city in Nashville, TN, I attended a student motivational assembly at Buena Vista Elementary with our partner agency, United 4 Hope. To strengthen the work of this school’s reading and mentoring program, FTC distributed books to 4th grade students. Many of these kids never owned a book of their own either.

I watched as teachers gave students a permanent marker to write their name inside their two books and squeals of excitement came from all around. I even had the opportunity to read to a group of girls a chapter. The way these girls carried their books showed their pride.

While it is important to feed hungry children food– which is what most people associate with FTC– I am seeing more and more that education is an important counterpart. We must feed the minds as well . . . one book at a time.

Whose Shoulders Are You Standing On?

Last night, at American University I was given the 2013 Alumni Recognition Award after being nominated by several of my peers. It was truly one of those once in a lifetime moments and meaningful to have my wife present alongside me and several close friends. I’m still smiling every time I think about what a lovely occasion it was.

This week as I was telling my parents about receiving this honor my dad, a man of few words (so when he speaks you have to pay attention) said something to me that caused me to stop and think.

He said, “Son, did you ever think you’d be in a position like this? Coming from a small South Georgia town of 15,000 people, a town where few people ever leave to move elsewhere . . . as the first person in your immediate family to ever attend college much less graduate school. Did you ever think you’d be able to be in the position where you are today, traveling all over the world, helping children as you do?” Then he paused, “You owe a lot to your education.”

And it is true. I would have never dreamed of this life happening to me and I am a so grateful for my education for bringing me to this moment.

Furthermore, I know I wouldn’t have received such an award if I’d hadn’t said yes to Feed The Children 16 months ago.

Feed The Children has what I believe to be one of the finest missions in the world: providing hope and resources to those without life’s essentials.

I spent much of my first year listening, learning the unique culture in the organization and its strengths, weaknesses, and wounds, and identifying what foundation and structure was needed to help us achieve our vision.

During these months, my American University education has proved exceptionally valuable. I often thought of the countless ways my coursework at American opened my eyes to the complexities of global issues and instilled in me values of needed to address the world’s deepest social ills in ways that bring the most good to the most people while treating them with the highest levels of dignity and respect.

And not that I didn’t use my international affairs degree in my previous places of employment, but now as I lead a global non-profit, it is a real joy to think I’m putting my education “to good use.” I’m standing on the shoulders of American University as I work and seek to lead and grow professionally everyday.

American University in particular the School of International Service, I’m proud to continue to be a part of your alumni family. I hope I’ll continue to make you proud.

What about you? Whose shoulders are you standing on?

Chocolate Milk Mondays

As I seek to be an adaptive leader, I often think that the best ideas emerge when you listen to your team.

This is the story of how one such new FTC tradition began. It’s called Chocolate Milk Mondays.

When I came on as CEO of FTC, I asked HR to place a suggestion box in the break room for employees to suggest ideas that they felt would make their experience at FTC a better one.

However, when our head of HR kept telling me that there were countless suggestions for “chocolate milk Mondays” in the suggestion box, I wondered what I had gotten into. As much as I wanted to honor (within reason) what employees suggested, I wasn’t sure about this idea. Surely it was just one person stuffing the box with the same idea over and over again?

But then, one evening last February I worked late. My wife and I had just hosted an all-staff Valentine’s party where we gave each member of the team in Oklahoma a heart-shaped cookie. I wanted to be the one who took the cookies to our night crew in the call center so that they wouldn’t feel left out.

As I spent some time chatting with them, it was soon apparent that it wasn’t one person who stuffed the box with the chocolate milk idea but an entire team: the night-time call center team.

They told me that their crew had asked for chocolate milk Mondays– knowing that it was a silly idea, but something they thought would brighten their day– just to see if I was listening. They wanted to know if it was really true that they could suggest anything and be heard?

The following Monday, I knew what was next. I drove to the local 7-11 and purchased several gallons of chocolate milk. I took it to the call center, and we sat down and drank chocolate milk together as a group.

The joy that followed overwhelmed me.

I heard from several employees that this act was the first time in their experience at Feed The Children that they had felt heard and cared for in such a specific way.

I heard a lot of “I’m so glad I work in an organization where the CEO knows my name.” I left that evening feeling uplifted and encouraged about the workplace culture I’m helping to create.

And so the tradition of chocolate milk Mondays lives on. Once a month, like I did this week (in the picture above), I spend some time with the evening call center thanking them for all they do for us each day at FTC with chocolate milk in hand. I don’t even mind staying late on these days because I always leave encouraged and empowered. I am surrounded by so many incredible people at FTC each day!

Who would have known chocolate milk could do all of this?

To the rest of the FTC team: don’t be afraid to suggest ideas. Who knows what might happen next? I’m listening to you.

We Must Work Together

I’ve been in Washington DC this week spending time with our government relations team and public policy team. I’ve also been meeting with CEOs and other non-profit leaders– folks who are trying to solve the big questions of hunger like we are at Feed The Children. I’ve had a great series of meetings with leaders such as those from Feeding America, Share Our Strength and Food for the Poor.

Years ago when I made the switch from the corporate to the non-profit world, it was somewhat shocking.

While in corporate America, my counterparts at similar organizations made no qualms about being competitors. Our goals were to do everything in our power to undermine our competition and take their market share. Everyone was out to make a name for themselves, improve their standing in the industry, all while making a dollar.

But when I moved to non-profit life, I soon discovered that very competitive edge was also present there, but no one seemed to talk about it. It was as if non-profit work led business executives to think they had halos over their heads, when they didn’t. Driven by passion and mission, it seemed the industry standard to try to out do your non-profit competitors– even if the larger goal of all of the organizations centered upon helping people. Where was all the warm and fuzzy collaboration I expected?

Where do I stand in all of this?

I make no excuses about the fact that I work extremely hard to take any organization that I lead to its greatest potential. I seek to follow sound business practices at all times, and yes, I’m sure sometimes they may seem aggressive to others. I know sometimes the best decision for an non-profit organization is to push your counterparts to step up their game, just as yours is doing. These are things I can be honest about.

But, it doesn’t mean that partnership can’t be at the foundation of your daily operations. It is what I believe in most for Feed The Children.

I am the first one to cheer on our counterparts.

In the business of ending child hunger– the mission that drives everything we do at FTC– I know this is not a fight we can win alone.

We need to talk to our friends at Feeding America and Share Our Strength to find out what they are doing, share our vision and find ways to work together to feed more kids in the US every day.

We need our friends at organizations like Good360 who can assist us with product donations when a crisis like an EF-5 tornado destroys a community in our own Oklahoma backyard.

We need our friends at other international relief and development organizations like Food for the Poor to share best practices and to encourage us that this big undertaking has a greater reach than just our own wing span.

We need community agencies, faith-based groups and other civic organizations to help us carry out our work every day.

The business of helping people is all about sustainable work– work that changes lives, changes hearts and strengths families. This is why more non-profits must be on the same team.

The acclaimed basketball player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once said this about working together: “Five guys on the court working together can achieve more than five talented individuals who come and go as individuals.” And such is also true about non-profit life.

I seek to extend a hand of friendship to other leaders in the great work ahead of us all, who might join me?

Driven by Mission Not Geography

Since I began my position at Feed The Children last year, the number one question I’ve gotten around our Oklahoma headquarters is, “When are you buying a house in Oklahoma?”

(Feed The Children’s international headquarters is in Oklahoma City, OK).

Currently, my wife and I own a home in the Washington, DC area and have a apartment in Oklahoma City. We consider ourselves people who live in both places. If you look at my monthly calendar you’ll notice large chunks of time spent in both places. Feed The Children opened an office in DC this year.

The Washington DC area is where my wife, Elizabeth and I were employed and living before the FTC opportunity came to us. It is the city that we both have many professional and personal connections that are of benefit to furthering the mission of FTC. Washington DC is not only home of the US capital but is widely recognized in the non-profit industry as the NGO capital as well. When I set my agenda and goals for my first year, I felt it was very important for FTC to have a physical and personnel presence in DC as we seek to both be in step with our counterparts but also to grow our reach of influence.

I understand what they are getting at when the Oklahoma staff ask about home ownership, though. They want to know when they can be certain I’m all in– fully committed to Feed The Children. Owning a home in Oklahoma is perceived as a sign of my permanence at FTC.

But, what those closest to me could testify to is: I’ve been “all in” since day one. I love my job. And am so proud to be the CEO of Feed The Children.

With this said, the “being both” lifestyle is the best decision I feel not only for my family but for Feed The Children. There’s a much bigger story at play.

Our family is driven by mission not geography.

When Elizabeth and I sit down and plan our schedule for the upcoming weeks, we do so with one big picture question in mind. “Does this _____ fit our mission?”

While the headquarters in Oklahoma is a very important part of the identity of FTC, I also recognize that FTC is an international organization. We have country offices all over the world. We have employees stationed all over the US. From the Philippines to Malawi to Tennessee and California, there are reasons for me to engage my physical presence in lots of different places.

To best understand the kind of visionary leader I need to be, I have to often physically get out into the field. I have to see the work with my own eyes. I have to be wherever our mission has already or might take us in the future. I can’t be in Oklahoma all the time and do my job well.

I want to do everything I can to ensure that no child around the globe goes to bed hungry.

And as I learn and lead, Oklahoma City and Washington DC then just become two of the many landing points my schedule might take me in the year.

Our family mission also includes things my wife feels called to as well. She’s a writer, a preacher and passionate nurturer of building community with folks all over the world. In the past year along with supporting my international travels with FTC, she’s found work both in Oklahoma and Washington DC as well as in places such as Tennessee, Georgia, and soon Hawaii.

We certainly know about how to find good deals on plane tickets.

Is this a traditional life? Is this a life I ever thought I would have? No and no.

But, because Elizabeth and I feel so called both to the mission of Feed The Children worldwide and also the mission of the global community we feel so naturally a part of right now, this is our life.

It’s not easy living this kind of life. Some days I can’t remember where I left my favorite brown belt. Some days I wake up and have to quickly remind myself where I am. Some days I think it would be easier if we just lived in one place. Then I remember our mission and I know I’m in exactly the right place.

The wide world is truly our home. And this includes Oklahoma too.