Nonprofits
Getting to the point
How to steer the conversation toward consensus
By Patrick Mayock
Smart Business Akron/Canton | November 2008
Page 1 of 2
Dennis Allen
CEO, Hattie Larlham
Dennis Allen doesn’t like to
talk things to death.
It’s not that the CEO of Hattie
Larlham is opposed to open
and honest debate; he just
thinks that words are meaningless if they’re not followed up
by a decisive resolution.
“You can’t just let the conversation go on and on,” Allen
says. “You have to say to people, ‘Give me the resolution to
this issue,’ and they’re expected
to do that.”
This philosophy has proved
invaluable at the 858-employee
nonprofit. Comprising seven
agencies that provide services
to hundreds of children and
adults with development disabilities, Allen says the organization would collapse under the
weight of idle talk. Instead, he
presses for forward-thinking
solutions when managing an
annual budget of $31 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Allen about how to steer any
debate toward consensus and
how to strengthen employees
through mentoring.
Steer toward the solution. I have
no problem in encouraging
debate. The issue is when the
debate ends, there has to be a
solution.
I don’t like it when we talk and
we talk and we talk, and at the
end of the day, we have no resolution to that issue. Shame on us
for not being able to recognize it
and address how we can take
what we have, our skills, our talents, our resources, whatever is
necessary to be able to then
address that and bring that to a
favorable and positive conclusion or resolution.
You allow a good, honest,
open discussion, but there are
going to be times you need to
say, ‘Answer this question.
Address this scenario. Tell me
how you would address this, or
how you would correct this.’ By
throwing those things into the
discussion in a reasonable way,
you’re redirecting people’s
focus, and you’re redirecting the
discussion. At the end of the
day, you have to call for the resolution.
Proclaim the mission. I think
there are times when we really, as leaders, we have to be
out in front of our staff. We
have to be out proclaiming or
explaining why we’re doing
what we’re doing and so on. If
you don’t stay in touch with all
members of your staff and
keep them informed, they
soon start questioning what
you’re doing and why.
If you’re communicating the
mission and communicating the
direction that you’re taking, staff
members are better able to
understand that and better able
to work with you on it and buy
in to what the change is that
you’re looking to make.
I can cast all the vision I want,
but if people don’t understand it and they can’t buy in to it, that
vision will die. It’s no different
whether it’s a for-profit business
or a nonprofit agency.
If the leadership isn’t out there
in front of the people explaining
what’s going on and where,
you’ll have a lot of people who
just maybe don’t want to buy in
or can’t understand or don’t
want to accept it.
