The consulting firm, 180ManagementGroup.com, works at the crossroads between culture and operations as advisors to nonprofits. CEO Miriam Dicks shared her expertise on defining and cultivating a positive culture within organizations. With a focus on addressing potential obstacles hindering transformational changes, this learning segment provides actionable steps to overcome these “pain points.” More about 180 Management Group.

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Telecast Transcript:

Co-Host Jarrett Ransom
Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad that you’ve chosen to spend your time with us today. Today our guest is Miriam Dicks and she is the founder, CEO at 180 management group. Mariam’s here to talk to us about changing the culture of a nonprofit. So stay with us because she’s got some really great insights to share. But before we dive into conversation, we want to remind all of you who we are. If we have not met yet. Julia Patrick is here, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I’m so grateful for this platform that you’ve created Julia, and I’m honored to serve alongside you day in, day out. I’m Jared ransom, nonprofit Nerd, CEO of the Raven Group, and I just have to share. I missed you, Julia. It’s been a couple of days. I was. Out as I call, you know, forest bathing. I I was in nature enjoying some some time of being unplugged and I missed the show greatly. So I’m excited to be back and of course we also want to give a huge shout out of gratitude to our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us to continue these conversations. Like the one that we’re about to have here with Miriam. So huge shout out of gratitude to our friends over at Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy at National University nonprofit thought Leader your Part Time controller staffing boutique nonprofit Nerd and nonprofit. Tech talk these companies have been with us most since the very beginning, really elevating the conversations that we have with guests that we’re gonna have here with Miriam. And as we move into the culture, hey, we’ve produced 800 episodes. If we haven’t. If we haven’t quite reached 800, it is around the bend. You can find. All of our platform, our sorry, all of our. Channels and many of these platforms, so streaming podcast you can find us there podcast platform as well and the latest and greatest is you can download the app on your smartphone. So just queue up the nonprofit show, and a mere few hours after today’s conversation with Miriam, you will get a notification that today’s episode has been. Uploaded so no excuse to miss out and you can listen to this and to us anytime it fits your schedule. So please do check us out on these various channels. So again, today’s guest really excited to have you Miriam Dicks again, founder, CEO at 180 management group. Welcome to you.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Well, thank you for having me. I’m so. Excited to be. Here today we.
Jarrett Ransom
Are excited. I’m even more excited knowing that you’re coming from to us from South Carolina had no idea. So that was a fun little chatter in the green room conversation. But Miriam, tell us a little bit about yourself, and then a little bit about what 180 management group does before we launch into the conversation.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Sure I am. What I call the chief fire put out her no matter what organization I’ve worked for, never, no matter where I’ve been, just putting out fires and just being that kind of person to bring structure to whatever it is that I’m working on is is really who I am now outside of that, of course I’m a mother. I’m a wife. I started 180 management group and I guess it’s almost nine years ago and really want to help businesses, organizations. Be able to build and restructure if need be. An organization that runs efficiently that can be managed at the highest level so that we can win. We can all win at mission right, achieving mission and vision, and so that was the impetus behind 180 management group and that’s what we do as operations consultants, a leadership consultants. And strategist is that we really want to make sure that organizations are structured in a way that they. When, but yeah, that’s that’s the the long and short of it. And as you know, I think I told you in the green room I am on every personality test that I’ve ever taken. I am 99.99% extrovert, so if I get to talk in and you need to like pull me back. In feel free to do that. Oh, my God.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, company for.
Guest Miriam Dicks
What is it?
Co-host Julia Patrick
That, you know, it’s really funny because talking about culture, we have a culture of of that. And sometimes Jared and I have to rope each other in our guests, get a. Word in it. So let’s start out with this, Miriam. Because culture is one of those. I said this in the green room. It’s somewhat of a mysterious topic, and it seems to change and we we think, oh, that’s civil, that’s a civil discussion that shouldn’t be part of our internal discussion, but it should be. I mean, let’s start off with how do we define?
Guest Miriam Dicks
So I’m going to give you the very basic definition of culture. Right? Culture is shared beliefs, practices, and behaviors, shared beliefs, practices, and behaviors. So when I was in my 20s, one of my first jobs was to work with a nonprofit organization that provided healthcare services. And in that role, it was somewhat of a startup role in that that department was new. But when I was introduced into the organization, there were so many moving parts that that really sort of frustrated me because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I didn’t. Know what to do. And there wasn’t a lot of plans or a lot of plans laid out for me as to how I was going to do this job, right that. Was recently hired for. And I I basically had to figure it out. My own and this is not an uncommon story for many folks who work in the nonprofit industry that you get hired with a title and some ideas about what it is that you’re supposed to do and that position, and you just kind of get in there and you. Have to wing it. And sometimes you’re winging it in the. Midst of a fire. Right. That’s a culture that’s a type of culture that exists in that organization. And in that moment, it helped me to understand that I wanted to go back to school because I was like there’s. A better way? There has to be a better way to do this work, other than being thrown in the midst of a fire, right? But when you think about it in that particular organization. Being onboarded how I was introduced into the into the organization with you know whether it was talking about my benefits or whether it was talking about, you know, it’s part of my orientation, what the work was gonna look like. All of those things were shared practices, right? The belief system. Let’s talk about belief system. If you say, well, this is. Just how we do it here? If someone says, Oh my gosh, this is so crazy you’re all over the place and someone says, well, this is just how we do it here. That’s sort of this belief that we have to work this way because we’ve never done any way any other way. Right. And then that whole practice, this piece, right, so you had the belief the hate or seen the behavior piece is that we just do what we have to do to make it work.
Julia Patrick
Right.
Guest Miriam Dicks
And that’s a shared that’s a shared behavior, right? So the practice of how we on board or how we do the work, the belief system as to you know, are we able to change it? No, this is just who we are. And then these, you know, these actual behaviors of, you know, this is just. We do so those things, all of those pieces, behaviors, practices, and beliefs. All of that makes culture.
Julia Patrick
It’s so interesting because I feel like in the nonprofit sector, we are always dealing with the problem and you, you introduced yourself. It was so interesting, you fire, put her out her. Which I was like. I mean, Jared, didn’t you? Were you just like, yeah. Oh, yeah. What happens in the nonprofit sector? We don’t take the time to breathe, Needless to say, nor to strategize or to recognize that we need to make a change. And so I’m really intrigued by this because. There’s a there’s this thing in sales that says, you know, don’t call the baby ugly. Meaning if you’re saying to the group, we need to change, I think a lot of times people get defensive. They’re like, well, we’re doing the work of the angels. We we don’t need. To change you. Know so how? Do you navigate this to say it is time for a change? How how do you? Do that without being negative, I guess.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Well, I think you really and and what we do is we identify pain points, right, because if there’s a cultural shift that needs to take place, there’s usually some pain associated with why that should take place. There could be high turnover. People don’t last long when they’re stressed in their work environment, and that’s a cultural issue. And so you could have high turnover or it could be that you have low staff morale. You know, people don’t feel as though they are making any headway and doing the work that they’re doing. Because maybe they’re constantly changing priorities, we try something and you know it’s great to try new things, but we have to do it long enough to know if it’s effective. Before we are on to the next initiative. And so there are there are symptoms that come from having a culture that is maybe not as productive or as friendly or kind to our staff as it needs to be. And once we identify those pain points and the conversation is different because you’re not attacking me, you’re help.
Speaker
And me?
Jarrett Ransom
Right, right.
Guest Miriam Dicks
You know this is.
Jarrett Ransom
So fascinating to me, and I’m hearing a lot of HR in this, and I’m also curious, Miriam, like, who is the one at the organization that reaches out to you? Is it? Is it the CEO or executive director? Is it a board member or is it you know? Like like who is the person that says ah, we need this, you know, like, who’s the one? That raises that.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Most in general, I’m working with a director of Operations COO, right, because they’re the put the fire putter Outers and they know what fires are there and they know exactly what’s going on in their culture, even if they can’t pinpoint it, they know they have a cultural issue because where we work as an organization. Is that and that crossroads between culture and operations? Yeah, because because we believe that culture is systemic. And it has to be changed systematically, right? So if you think about systemic, what that means, it’s like and one of the definitions that I really love, you talk about plant life is that it’s absorbed and circulated. That’s what systemic means. It’s absorbed and it’s circulated throughout the organization and so. If that’s happening, you have to identify where in the pockets in the organization, because it could be just pockets, but it could be overarching culture. Where is it that we need to really identify the issues so that we can put something in place that’s system systematic, right? Right. So it might be. And we’re not just talking about HR because it could be something going on with it. I had an organization I was working with recently on, you know creating this IT strategy for the organization. They kept saying things like well, but we’re just not tech people. Well, if that’s part of what you say all the time, you will not be tech people, so you have to really understand that you have a language. Barrier there behaviors or beliefs, right? And we have to get beyond. We’re not tech people that say, well, what support do you need as an organization to make sure that whatever applications you’re using, everyone feels comfortable and confident that they can use those applications? Right. So then we might have that strategy, but then we’re gonna also have to make sure it’s communicated and that we hold people accountable because you can’t change culture without having it be systematic, right? So we have to identify where the issue is and then we have to create that strategy and then we have to make sure that we are putting things in place that is communicated well. The strategy that is. And what’s acceptable behavior and what’s not acceptable, and then making sure we hold people accountable to that because you cannot have change if you don’t have those pieces.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, I’m curious. When we talk about change. How long does that take and on average, right cause? I know that there’s we’re we’re talking about a lot, you know, and maybe we’re just making some tweaks with our culture, maybe maybe we’re overhauling our culture.
Speaker
Right. OK.
Jarrett Ransom
What does that transformation timeline look like?
Guest Miriam Dicks
Well, you know, they’re levels to. This I. You know it, it depends on how toxic the culture is, right.
Jarrett Ransom
OK.
Guest Miriam Dicks
So we haven’t really talked about toxicity, but if the culture is toxic and the organization finds themselves in sort of this emergency situation, they’re gonna have to respond to it in kind, which means we’re gonna have to make. Some really strong. You know, decisions followed by some really, you know, some implementation of those actions that are, you know taking place very quickly because we have to stop. The bleeding, yeah. Right. So if you’re on fire and you’re or or you’re, you know, hurt and you are gushing blood, then we have to make sure that we can plug you up. And so that’s a quicker like you know, those are quicker type situations where you have to just put something. In place, but ideally. Culture is like trying to turn a. You don’t do that quickly. We can put out a fire, but that’s more like putting a Band-Aid on a cultural issue. So if you’re going to turn a ship, you gotta do it slowly because you want to make sure everyone is making that shift together because again, culture is shared. Beliefs, beliefs, practices and behaviors. Well, if it’s not shared, it’s not culture.
Jarrett Ransom
That’s right.
Guest Miriam Dicks
So if you leave people behind, they won’t be able to to take part in this cultural shift, and it won’t take effect.
Speaker
What are?
Julia Patrick
So I love what you’re saying, cause I can see this in so many ways, and you’re painting a picture for me. That’s that’s very. Distinct and I’ve got to ask you, can you take on? More than one shift, so I loved it. You said an organization said, well, we’re just not tech people. And it’s like, well, you got to become tech people.
Speaker
We talked about that a lot.
Julia Patrick
In the nonprofit sector, Jeremy, we’re on this all the time. And then let’s say you have within that. Same organization. We’re not good with playing or collaborating with the other departments. Can you take both of those cultural? Shifts that are needed. And and and make those changes at the same time. Or do you need to plot along and take care of 1 before you can take care? Of the other.
Guest Miriam Dicks
I think what’s important is to make sure you have an overall game plan, like a strategy, because when you have that overall understanding of what your organization needs, then you can identify at what point do we introduce certain parts of this change, right. So that’s what change management really is all about. It’s about making sure that we understand what changes need. To be made. And then knowing how we’re going to deploy those particular changes in those. Strategies and so, for example, the organization that we talked about, which you know they wanted to overhaul their IT strategy, well part of it was making sure that they understood that as part of this every director had a responsibility and a role to play in this. And if they have a responsibility role because they were overseeing a particular system. Then they also had to communicate that to their staff. So we build in communication strategies, right, because that’s a big part of making the change. We also building the technical pieces right. So what if you need other consultants? If you need other support, we need to build that into this. Process and so having that overall strategy and then understanding what the timeline looks like, who needs to be a part of it when they need to be a part of it, and then what is going to be the reporting or the the the impact we have to measure the impact of it so that we know that we’re plotting along the course the way that we need to within the timeline that’s. Then design based on that particular need. So it really is systematic again, right? Because what happens? I think more often than not is that culture, because of the word culture can be used so many different ways. Everyone has their own idea of what that is. You really should identify what your culture is and your organization.
Jarrett Ransom
So I have a couple of questions. First of all. How how do you identify the culture of your organization? Is this a survey? Is this, you know, a A committee that come a cultural committee that comes together? And then on on maybe the same line of that, Miriam, I’m curious who defines or who decides that the place is toxic, right? Because I feel that I hear that often and it’s like, OK, is this one person’s view, is it 1 departments view or is this our shared culture? Those are kind of two questions, but maybe.
Guest Miriam Dicks
So let me. So let me answer the first question, which is how do you define your culture? How do you determine what your culture is? I would all. I would recommend that any organization who does not know bring someone else in to help them define their culture. Right, because you don’t know what you don’t know and you can’t see things that may be hidden that someone else can pick up on.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, in the in it.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Right. So you you should all. I think you should bring someone in. To help you assess your culture now what we do at 180 management group is we have our own. Cultural assessment. Called the groundwork. And the groundwork is really understanding 3 facets of culture how people work together, how people perform their jobs, their work. And how work is reported so that it’s a part of strategic planning, right? So and we need to know if. You spin your wheels. A lot. Right. Because that’s a part of. Culture and so and we do that, you know, through a detailed assessment if you will. And we also do interviews like. Employee survey and interviews three parts to it. A detailed assessment, employee survey and interviews with key staff members who are responsible for building or managing certain aspects of culture. And we take that information and we have developed what we call the 9:00. 7 Excuse me, 7 archetypes of culture, so we if you’ve ever taken Myers Briggs and I’ve taken Myers, Briggs or any of the other personality assessments, we have our own personality assessment for organizations. And so we, we can take that information and put it into, you know, it’ll pop out a, put it into an algorithm and it’ll give us sort of this understanding of this type of culture. That exist in an organization and from there we will design strategies you know surrounding how it is that we can shift culture for the organization. At any, any consultant, we are again sort of boutique in that regard because we’re operations consulting firm, but consultants should be able to assess an organizations culture and provide some strategies and solutions to help make that shift all right. So who decides then whether something is toxic?
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Jarrett Ransom
Who’s the one that can? Say like I’m gonna label. This entire place a toxic workplace.
Guest Miriam Dicks
I will say that. If one person says it. Then there’s probably some. Truth to it.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, like wildfire, you.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Know exactly because if one person says it and someone’s on their side, then it it’s. Going to spread like wildfire.
Jarrett Ransom
Right, they’re gonna. Say yes, it is and then it just kind of.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Right. However, who needs to believe it? That’s different, right?
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Who says it is one thing, but who needs to believe it? And whoever the head person is in that organization needs to believe it because they are the ones who champion the change. If the person at the helm does not believe that the organization needs any kind of cultural change, it will not happen. There has to be buy in at the highest level.
Julia Patrick
So let’s get on to that, because I think that that is magical. I loved Jared’s question like, who hires you, who brings the. On because doing that is 1 heavy lift, but then. Actually making these transformational changes is another and so talk to us about that. How do we take these steps in, in making a change?
Guest Miriam Dicks
Well, the first part is the assessment, right? Understanding more about your organization and where you have opportunity to create a a better culture, whatever that means to your organization, right, because your data is going to show certain things. Like I said before, there are always symptoms to poor culture. So if we are able to identify what those symptoms are and we recognize that those are symptoms of cultural, the need for cultural transformation and we, you know, believe that we should move forward and transforming the culture, that’s half the battle, right, that is just half the battle. So then after that happens, then it’s OK. Well, now that we know we’ve done this sort of situational assessment, we understand that our culture is not where it where it needs to be, what we need to have some vision. Thing right? What is our future state? What is that going to look like for our organization? We know what our current state is, but what is our future state? What is our desire for this organization and between your current state and your future state is where the work is. Then you can come up with a strategy that says, OK, we want to be able to do XY and Z by this time, because this is where. We want to be. At X point in time and future, right. And so that helps break it down to the point where it’s not. So like we said, heady, it’s not so ethereal. It’s very practical at that point. Here are steps that we need to take to get from point A to point. Be and so at that point, when you have those steps outlined, then it’s a matter of aligning people, aligning processes, and aligning your strategy to make sure those steps occur. I hope that’s pretty clear because I want it to be practical that we aren’t just. We aren’t just, you know, coming up with, oh, I just think it should be like this today. No, no, no, no. We should have some data. There should be some symptom. There should be something that by the end of this transformation, we know we’ve made a transformation because we can see the data change. Maybe it’s employee satisfaction is increased. Maybe it’s your turnover rate has decreased, maybe it’s that you were able to finish a project that’s been outstanding for like, you know, 18 months, right? Those those data points.
Jarrett Ransom
And all along the way, Miriam, you are communicating this with all the team members. Is that right? Like talking all staff, right.
Guest Miriam Dicks
That’s right. And and it’s sort of a need to know situation here, right? Because some things as as management as leaders, we know that everyone isn’t ready to absorb and so we have to be careful about what it is that we tell people just because we don’t want to give too much too soon because people can be overwhelmed, right? That’s what we’re leaders because we’re ahead we’re. Not that not that we’re better. It’s just that we’re in front of some things that maybe others who follow us are not in front of. And so we just have to be very careful to make sure that we don’t overwhelm staff with so much information that they’re not ready to handle. So communication, the communication strategy should be in place. Is to let folks know what they need to know when they need to know it, and really it should be like more of a scorecard or something like that. So they know they’re winning.
Julia Patrick
You know it’s. We don’t have a lot of time left, but it seems to me that you are engaging everybody in the the notion that, hey, we need to make a change and guess what? You’re part of it is the post just from top. Down this is our new culture now. Believe it. Right.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Right.
Julia Patrick
Is that true? I mean, you’re you’re not.
Guest Miriam Dicks
So even as part of the assessment itself that that everyone knows in the very beginning, hey, we want to make some changes in our organization and you’re going to be a part of it.
Speaker
OK.
Guest Miriam Dicks
We want to get your feedback, so someone’s going to reach out to you. We’re going to have this assessment done. We’re going to, you know. Do this employee survey. We really want to know how you feel about the organization. But you can’t just stop there. You can’t just say, well, we we took a a survey and no one. Told us what the results were like, right and.
Speaker
Right. That’s why I’m happy.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Right.
Julia Patrick
It happens a lot.
Guest Miriam Dicks
So you have to. So you have to circle back around to say, OK, this is what came out of that survey and we’re going to engage XY and Z to make sure that we continue this conversation. We continue this process because we’re invested in transformational. Change or or or cultural transformation and so at that point you should be giving you know. Some sort of time create some sort of timeline where you can give feedback about where you are in the process along the way. So it’s not just that we heard from you, you know last year that we were gonna have this whole cultural transformation and then it’s two years later and we don’t know whatever happened to that survey we took because we never heard anything back from it. So there should be that. Again, communication that leads to accountability because we’re not gonna just tell you something. Give your information that you don’t have any responsibility to uphold, right?
Julia Patrick
So one last question and. I’ve gotta ask this because we you work with it. Jarrett works with it. I work. High level, high extroverted, high-powered executives who I would imagine sometimes this is some pretty strong medicine or if not bitter, somebody comes and tells them something and they’re not happy or they don’t want to embrace this news. How do we navigate change when leadership is like, well, that’s not us. That’s not true. How do we how do? We get them to see the reality of this.
Guest Miriam Dicks
You know that’s that is a a challenge. I don’t know that I have a really good answer for that. I will say that until that leader experiences enough pain, they’re not going to make a change. If they’re OK with the status quo and it doesn’t have an impact on them that you know that makes them want to, you know, change the organization or change the culture or be a champion or change champion, you’re just not going. To get anywhere, and so there has to be enough pain. Been there enough loss and that’s where I’ve seen that transformation in that leader occur when they realize you know what, this isn’t working.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, that truth serum, you know, and I think this isn’t working. You’re right. I mean it. It’s how much pain will that person or persons endure. But also like the surrounding leader saying, hey, I really. Think like to. Impian you know the assessment to champion the conversation to say, hey, you know, I I think we could benefit from this. It’s not gonna hurt us to identify some of those baseline, you know, notions. And then let’s take it from there. So and that’s.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Well, and that’s relational. Yes, so that that, that, that leader has to have a team that they trust. And if they trust their team, then that team can bring it to them and say this is where we need to be. And I don’t really see that a lot when it comes to not having a good team around that can influence the decision of that senior leader where I do see it happen most often where. The denial is is when it’s a founder, yes.
Julia Patrick
Yes, founders. Hey, you know, Miriam. Miriam, you’ve been a champion on the nonprofit show today, and we’ve we’ve talked a lot about having champions you. And ours, Miriam ***** founder, CEO of 180 Management Group 180. Managementgroup.com. Check them out. Really interesting conversation. I feel like as the pandemic winds down, this is going to be that moment in our sector for. 1.8 million nonprofits registered in this country to maybe start looking at these things and saying, OK, what are the lessons learned? What’s our culture? How do we move forward? And so this has been an exquisite conversion. I I suspect you’ll be reaching out to get. You back on. Because it’s really really cool. Really cool. Again, I’m Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, been joined today by Jared R Ransom, the nonprofit Nerd herself. We have so much gratitude for our champions, and they include. Bloom Boomerang, American nonprofit Academy your part time controller nonprofit thought leader, fundraising Academy at National University Staffing boutique, nonprofit Nerd and nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the. Folks that join US day in and day out and help us bring great minds in our sector like we have today with Miriam Dix. Thank you so much, Miriam. I really loved what you had to say, and I just see that it’s an enlightened path forward for so many of us. So thank you.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Thank you so much for.
Julia Patrick
Having me all right, every day as we end the the each episode of the nonprofit show, we like to share our mantra and that. It goes like this. Stay well, so you can do well. We’ll see you back here tomorrow. Thank you, ladies.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah. Thanks, Marianne.
Guest Miriam Dicks
Thank you. Have a great one.