March 16, 2009

Are you refusing to face facts? Is your organization refusing to face facts? Or, are you or your organization unclear about what the facts are?

In his March 6, 2009 column (“The Big Dither”), Paul Krugman ends with this sentence: “But this refusal to face the facts means, in practice, an absence of action.”

That’s pretty powerful. Refusing to face facts means we don’t act.

What’s happening in your life? What’s happening in your organization?

Do you face facts? Do you ask the most cage-rattling questions to make sure you have the facts? Do you stimulate conversation at the staff and board levels to learn perceptions and gather insights – as part of your strategy to face facts?

Do you help your organization acknowledge the truths? Do you push your organization to act?

Surely that’s what leadership is. Surely those with the body of knowledge and awareness of best practice (and a suspicion of next practice) must highlight the most difficult facts and reiterate the most challenging truths.

What cage-rattling questions does your organization need to ask itself? What information do you need to gather and analyze and then discuss the trends and implications?

Are you avoiding any facts? If yes, why? What stops you and your organization from facing facts?

Leaders do not refuse to face the facts. Instead, leaders search for the facts. Leaders demand the truth. And then leaders help (how about make?) the organization act.

Anything less and . . . what do you think will happen? Missed opportunities. Floundering. Barely surviving. And finally . . . what do you think? The end?

Filed under: Leadership

About Simone Joyaux

A consultant specializing in fund development, strategic planning, and board development, Simone P. Joyaux works with all types and sizes of nonprofits, speaks at conferences worldwide, and teaches in the graduate program for philanthropy at Saint Mary’s University, MN. Her books, Keep Your Donors and Strategic Fund Development, are standards in the field.

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