Dr. John’s recommended reading list for becoming a Mission-Driver. 11 Jul 2024, 5:14 pm

Recommended Reading List
Selected by Dr. John Davidoff, Founder & Chief Mission-Driver, Davidoff Mission-Driven Business Strategy, LLC

• Adler, Alfred. The Science of Living.
• Berne, Eric. Games People Play.
• Boyatzis, Richard and Annie McKee. Resonant Leadership.
• Bradshaw, John. Healing the Shame that Binds You.
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
• Davidoff, John. “Shifting Perspective of the Leader You See Yourself Becoming: A Study of the Effectiveness of an Adlerian Existential Developmental Training for Facilitating the Process of Selfening.”
• Dweck, Carol. Mindset
• Erhard, Werner, Michael C. Jensen, and Steve Zaffron. “Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality”
• Fosha, Diana, Daniel J. Siegel, and Marion Solomon. The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience
• Frankl, Viktor, Man’s Search for Meaning
• Freud, Anna. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.
• Gardner, John. Multiple Intelligences.
• Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence.
• Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence.
• Hanson, Rick. Hardwiring Happiness The New Brain Science of Contentment.
• Harris, Thomas Anthony. I’m OK. You’re OK.
• Kegan, Robert and Lisa Laskow Lahey. An Everyone Culture.
• Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
• Lowen, Alexander, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind.
• Maslow, Abraham. Toward a Psychology of Being.
• May, Rollo. Love and Will.
• May, Rollo. Man’s Search for Himself.
• Miller, Alice. The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self.
• Neff, Kristin. Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.
• Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy
• Seligman, Martin. Flourish.
• Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization
• Siegel, Daniel J.The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are.
• Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be.
• Watts, Alan. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
• Wright, Judith and Robert Wright. Transformed! The Science of Spectacular Living.

Developing Nonprofit Professionals 19 Apr 2024, 7:43 pm

Developing yourself and others as leaders is one of the most important qualities of being a Mission-Driver.  In this April 2024 episode of The Nonprofit Show podcast, Dr. John Davidoff and our JMT Consulting client John Tiso discuss with host Julia C. Patrick the multiple areas of an effective nonprofit leader, identifying and nurturing leadership, developing a culture of continuous learning and growth, and the value of coaching and mentoring.

Leadership Happens In The Micro-Moments: A Call To Action For Women 17 Jul 2023, 3:11 pm

“Here’s what I should have done.”

“Here’s what I should have said.”

Many women will recognize those statements, having said them to ourselves after a meeting, conversation, or other interaction—perhaps involving one or more male participants.

We often dismiss ourselves, partly because we’ve been trained not to see ourselves accurately . . . and to stay quiet.

We don’t speak up in meetings. We don’t follow our intuition. We don’t trust ourselves.

And all of that comes at a cost.

To our colleagues. To our clients, funders, and partners. To our organizations and the missions we serve. And, of course, to ourselves most of all.

Because stepping into our power takes risk. We feel vulnerable. We are stepping into the unknown.

And we tend to hold ourselves back from taking action, in so many ways.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

This series of articles, for women and people who work with women, will help you be more aware of challenges, take action in moments large and small, and move from awareness to meaningful action. We will help you understand the thinking and behaviors that may prevent women from speaking up, and offer tips for overcoming these barriers.

Call to Action: How to Use a Micro-Moment

As an executive leadership coach who leads groups for women who seek to develop from the inside out, my goal in empowering women (and in fact anyone of any gender identity) is to help you develop your emotional intelligence and self-awareness so that in the moment—the “micro-moments,” as I think of them—you are aware of what’s going on inside you, and able to harness that awareness to act.

That means being aware of the voice inside telling you to speak up, to share your perspective. It also means being aware of your tendency to quiet that voice, to ignore it, to dismiss it. This awareness is what leads to real change.

It’s not just cognitive awareness. Perhaps there’s even a body component you can sense — a flutter, a feeling of aliveness in your stomach, a feeling of excitement that you have something to say, something to contribute. But also the fear that maybe you shouldn’t, maybe you won’t be taken seriously, or your idea won’t be seen as valuable.

So we want to help you train yourself to be truly aware, to consciously think in that micro-moment: Something’s going on. I want to speak. And, I am afraid. I am vulnerable. I am aware I have a choice to make, and I want to make it consciously, not default to inaction or stereotype.

That positive set of statements can help you overcome self-sabotaging thoughts like: What if I sound scared or stumble to find the right words? What if what I say isn’t right? What if the people in the meeting don’t like it?

This conscious push for awareness will help you act in the moment, bringing your fear with you. The more you make the choice to take risks in those micro-moments, the more you will discover your capacity  — and your internal and external power.

Micro-moves lead to macro-level change

Leadership Development Training: Enhance Your Vision and Understanding of Yourself as a Leader 17 May 2022, 2:30 pm

Training Location: The training will be conducted entirely on Zoom.

Training Dates and Times: (Attendance on both days is required.)

Day 1: Wednesday, June 15, 2022: 8am – 1pmCT

Day 2: Thursday, June 16, 2022: 8am – 1pmCT

Achieving Authentic Mission-Driven Organizational Development 4 Jan 2022, 3:01 pm

The Davidoff methodology for authentic Mission-Driven organizational development was profiled in the December 2021 issue of Manage HR Magazine. Read about Davidoff’s suite of organizational planning, Mission-Driver leadership development, and drama-free / high-performing cultures. Learn more

Mission-Driven Teaming 19 Nov 2021, 7:05 pm

Jacki and John Davidoff were invited by Dr. Charles Montorio-Archer, CEO of One Hope United, to submit a chapter for the new edition of his book Everybody Paddles. Given the Davidoffs’ status as business partners and partners-in-life, they decided to write about what they know best — Mission-Driven Teaming.

Jacki and John share about the principles and experiences for aligning as a high-performing team. We are sharing the e-book chapter and hope you are inspired by some of the Davidoffs’ wins and their challenges, and that you see lessons for yourself as you lead and support the teams in your organization, family, and community.

To read Davidoff’s chapter on Mission-Driven Teaming, download the ebook here.

Click here to order the book Everybody Paddles

Leading Through Crisis: A Mission-Driver’s Guide 24 Jun 2020, 6:20 pm

Are You Leading Through Crisis or is Crisis Leading You?

The buzz about leadership through crisis often centers around concepts like crisis management. Crisis management is defined as the way an organization deals with sudden events that threaten to harm the organization and its stakeholders. As consultants, we look at crisis differently.

Without diminishing the gravity of the situation, we also see the silver lining of disruptive events in the life of an organization and the opportunity for growth they present.

We look at the current situation of an organization – – its people, internal systems, and the external environment – – as opportunities for leaders and organizations to step outside of their day-to-day routine ways of operating. We encourage them to become aware of unconscious patterns and ways of behaving that are keeping them from higher levels of functioning and effectiveness.

We advise our Mission-Driven clients to leverage the current times to intentionally look at their organizations from a 50-foot view and assess everything: human capital, operations, funding, stakeholder engagement, and untapped opportunities.

Mission-Drivers use crisis moments to initiate conversations with key stakeholders to identify gaps in all areas of the organization (click to see our COVID-19 gap analysis). This requires self-reflective, self-confronting leaders, board members, and staff (read more about self-confronting leadership here).  It is easy to plan after a situation is resolved, but it is also a missed opportunity. Turning into the fire, while it is burning, can add the heat that is needed to overcome denial and address the ways an organization is not its best self. This is the time to rally yourself and rally others. There is important work to be done.

To learn how you can lead through crisis, contact Jacki Davidoff for a 15-minute conversation.

Responsive Planning: How To Come Out Ahead in a Pandemic 13 May 2020, 3:39 pm

Responsive Planning: How To Come Out Ahead in a Pandemic

The pandemic is exposing tremendous gaps in our teams, our organizations, and our society. And, to be honest, in each of us.

As consultants, we hear clients expressing vulnerability about what they’re experiencing in their organizations. New ways of thinking and acting are emerging while we continue to feel concerned about how we will meet the basic needs of our teams, organizations, and communities.

How can we move forward purposefully in the face of our gaps and any lack of preparedness? How do we lead our staff, our boards, donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders with vision, relevance, and principle-based leadership?

Here is what we advise leaders to do: lead your organization with responsive planning. 

Responsive planning has five steps:

1. Complete a gap analysis (see below) to identify your strengths and weaknesses and map out the ideal standard in each area (leadership, planning, and culture).
2. Create a plan to address these gaps, including developing priorities and action steps.
3. Share the plan with internal stakeholders and seek their perspectives.
4. Once the plan is determined, communicate the plan with external stakeholders
5. Begin to implement and continue to monitor the external environment, adjusting your plan in real-time.

The benefits of responsive planning are immediate and long-term. Taking this approach increases your organization’s capacity to adapt to changing circumstances, real-time. By understanding the situational landscape and facing issues and threats head-on, you provide security for yourself, your team, board, and other key stakeholders. In the long term, responsive planning ensures your organization navigates through crises in a way that will serve as a model for future planning and strategy.

Use our template (available here) in consultation with your brain trust to help identify and create the systems and resources to support you and your organization through the COVID-19 crisis and beyond

To get started, consider the following questions for each of the areas:

Present State: What can you name about your current situation? Remember: stick with the facts, rather than stories.

You may write down statements like:

• Board has not met to create a revised strategy in response to the pandemic.
• Staff members are dropping deadlines and missing team meetings.
• Mission is highly relevant and our work is in more demand than ever.
• Cash is sufficient to carry expenses through July 2020.

Ideal State: What is your ideal for this area or situation? Remember: think about what you’d really like to make happen, don’t be limited by existing ways of doing things. 

You may write down statements like:

• Board executive committee and leadership team meet weekly to create a responsive plan 
• Staff members are aware of what each other is doing and what their individual concerns are. They update each other with daily check-in’s and discuss mission-related wins and areas where they need support. 
• Clients report a high level of satisfaction.
• Fundraising events shift to online and meet or exceed revenue goals.

To learn more about creating a response plan for your organization, contact Jacki Davidoff to set up a 20-minute conversation.

Reactive Versus Reflective Thinking: Coming Out Ahead In Times of Crisis 2 Apr 2020, 5:08 pm

“This situation has exposed a lot of gaps, from macro (societal and organizational) to micro (individuals and teams). We can use this crisis to find solutions and create stronger, more resilient people, teams, and organizations for the future. Now is the time to do this work.”
-John Davidoff, Founder and Chief Mission-Driver

During COVID-19, 9/11, and the 2008 banking crisis/recession, we observed our client organizations responding in one of two ways:

1. Reactive thinking and acting
2. Reflective thinking, planning, and acting

Those who responded with reactive thinking operated with an emotion-driven, short-term perspective that tended to seek to minimize damages and loss. Those who responded with reflective thinking assessed the situation from various perspectives and were looking at the long game.

In our experience, leaders demonstrating reflective thinking did the following:

• They took the perspective that while they expected to take hits, they also regarded the crisis as a time of inquiry and examination for the organization.
• They sought counsel from others throughout the process; all aspects of their organization, operationally and culturally, were fair game for feedback.
• They went into the situation with the intent to emerge as a more effective and relevant organization.
• They understood that we would not be returning to the familiarity of the past, and strategized to adapt to a new future.

The reflective leaders knew the inquiry would reveal areas of organizational gaps — or in our language, areas of Mission-Challenge. Yet because they intended to gain from their inquiry, they knew this would put them ahead in the long run and result in a more resilient organization. We observe that these organizations are better positioned to serve their missions, clients or customers, funders, partners, and other stakeholders and to weather future crises more effectively.

Understand Your Situation Before You Act

Consider the situation and the internal and external environments before you act. This is the time to broaden your brain trust (see our blog on questions to ask your brain trust), instead of turning inward and going it alone. We all benefit from having others’ perspectives to be sure we all clearly understand our situations before taking action. Bring your trusted advisors and subject-matter-experts together to think through questions such as: What is our role here? What is our best use informed by our mission?

We also advise you to use assessment tools to facilitate your analysis of the situation to which you are responding. In our Mission-Driven Strategic Planning suite, we offer three assessments, Mission-Driven/Mission-Challenged, Ideal State Action Planning, and SWOT. This will provide critical data and reveal the gaps you need to address organizationally.

Let us level set here: every organization (and every person) has gaps between where they are now and their ideal. It is disturbing to realize that your organization was not prepared for this. Leaders acknowledge the truth of this so they can address their gaps and strategize on what’s needed (systems, planning, operations, addressing cultural or leadership issues). One common gap we see in many of our clients is that they have not (yet) articulated principles and values that will help guide your organization through this process.

6 Questions Mission-Drivers Ask of Their Brain Trust in Times of Crisis 2 Apr 2020, 5:07 pm

We believe reflective thinking requires leaders to gather a brain trust of trusted stakeholders (this could be a combination of senior leaders, team members from various departments, board members, partners, advisors, other stakeholders). Convene this group and meet together daily (ideally via video) to ensure decisions are well-informed and that you’ve thought through the implications of decisions on all stakeholders — in the short- and long-term.

Here are six key questions to guide your discussions:

1. What is the current state of our organization we want to shift from?
2. What is the ideal state of the organization we want to shift to?
3. What is currently not working in our organization that we’ve been avoiding?
4. What are the cultural shifts that would support our organization to operate more effectively?
5. What are the values and principles around which we can orient to guide our actions and behaviors – internally and externally?
6. How do these values and principles inform the way we act and interact with each other and the outside world?

To learn more about values and principles for your organization, or to discuss how this relates to your organization, reach out to Jacki Davidoff to set up a 20-minute conversation.