Minerva Project Formalizes Relationships with Non-Profits

Consultant, Non-Profit Collaboration Announces Next Step in Phased Effort

The Minerva Project Consultant Team announces an upcoming improvement in its operations.  From here forward, all projects with Non-Profits (NP) will involve a "Team" effort that leverages the best talents of all the Consultants involved in the Collaboration.  "We'll use all of our resources," says George Moskoff, CMC, Minerva Project Founder and Consultant. 

The Minerva Project is an initiative created by North Bay, California professional consultants who have organized themselves to help Non-Profits (NP) during this difficult time of increased demand and sagging donations.  The NP's get some help; the Consultants get something to seek their teeth into and contribute to a good cause.

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The new feature will call for a lead consultant who will "shepherd" the Team effort for the NP.  Moskoff explains: "The Shepherd will be the Consultant who has the greatest amount of work with that particular organization and can see how the puzzle pieces of other consultants might fit together," says Moskoff.

The new program calls for monthly Web and phone conferences among all the consultnats in the program.  This will provide the venue for "checking in" and brainstorming the need for more / different resources.

The Minerva Project will continue to focus on core needs for non-profits but in a more efficient way.  Some of the areas of support include: Fund Raising; Management Development; Board Training and Development; Board Recruitment; Finance and Accounting; Volunteer Recruiting and Retention.

Consultants in the program will sign up for a six (6) month commitment to the work whose structure will include weekly phone calls and monthly face to face meetings with the "clients."  Some of the activities the Consultants will engage in include: Board Trainings / Retreats; Staff Trainings; Personal Coaching of Executive Directors; Market Research; Computer and Web-Based Projects.

Lomesh Shah, of IQR Consulting, specializing in Technology and Analytics said, "Without the work of these non profits, the community would be far worse off.  And, if IQR could,in a small way, contribute to helping these organizations overcome the resource crunch, then it was a worthwhile effort." 

The Program in the Northbay -- Sonoma County -- is part of a statewide rollout of similar initiatives to help Non-Profits and give good-willed consultants something to sink their teeth into.  Minerva Project Founder, George Moskoff, CMC, says "we'll be moving into San Francisco by the end of the year as part of our phased rollout to recruit more consultnats who want to work with non-profits in need."

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The Case for Pessimism

Worriers Can Be Winners

"Lincoln, Churchill, and Newton, to name just a few famous mopers, all accentuated the negative."

I have been accused, a good part of my life, for only seeing the bad stuff.  Some of this, possibly, is genetics -- my hardwiring -- and other pieces could be learning: it got rewards from my father and others.  Doom and gloom folks, though, seem to have skills that the optimists don't: to see the future more clearly, the pitfalls, the dragons lurking in the dark that will breathe fire and...bite.

An Op-Ed piece in Business Week by Patricia Pearson, sheds light on the need right now for some balance.  She reports that optimists have an "attentional bias" to notice opportunities and look for rewards.  They're unlikely to pay much attention, though, to the gathering storm clouds on the horizon.  That's the domain of the somber.

For the scientists out there, the analyticals, there appears to be a genetic link between mood disorders and "problem-solving creativity."  A plus.  Those with irrational optimism are, by contrast, not the best at creating a "Plan B." 

Businesses, especially during difficult times, are encouraged to tap "depressive realism:" the gift given to the melancholy to see "reality more accurately."  While they won't  be warmly welcomed at today's relentlessly upbeat sales conferences, they are needed and should be listened to.  (Remember Sharon Watkins who told Ken Lay [Enron] about the impending "implosion of accounting scandals?")

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Malcolm Gladwell: "Socially Horrifying" Tactics Can Yield Winners

David Beats Goliath More of the Time Using These Strategies

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Blink, writes in The New Yorker on how the underdogs win battles, basketball games, simulated water wars.  What lessons from these illustrations can we apply to the business world? 

In Goliath's time, duels with Philistines were a formal affair: they began with the crossing of swords. David, a shepherd, "came at Goliath with a slingshot and staff because those were the tools of his trade." He brought a shepherd’s rules to the battlefield.

A young girls' basketball team in Redwood City, California -- while not as talented or as tall as their competitors -- used the "full court press" to bewilder their opponents and force them to make more mistakes.  The smaller girls would steal the ball and, then, make high-percentage layup shots.

Their Coach, one of the girls' dads, cricket and soccer player and new thinker/software pioneer, made his analysis: It was as if there were a kind of conspiracy in the basketball world about the way the game ought to be played, and Ranadivé thought that that conspiracy had the effect of widening the gap between good teams and weak teams.

Thirdly, a computer scientist named Lenat developed an artificial intelligence program to help win a war game competition. What he found proved to be "socially horrifying."

But, Eurisko didn't have that kind of preconception, partly because it didn’t know enough about the world.” So it found solutions that were, as Lenat freely admits, “socially horrifying”: send a thousand defenseless and immobile ships into battle; sink your own ships the moment they get damaged.

Detective of fads and emerging subcultures, chronicler of jobs-you-never-knew-existed, Malcolm Gladwell's work is toppling the popular understanding of bias, crime, food, marketing, race.  What does his theory about "socially horrifying" tactics tell us?  That there are "gentleman's rules" by which all competitions engage?  That there are tactics, while valuable and effective, which can be repugnant? 

Some would just call this stuff, these "inappropriate" methods  "out of the box" thinking.  I'd be in that court; time for some big change.  Break the norms. 

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Google: The Behemoth That Creates

Walking Directions in Beta

I am continuously impressed by the areas in which Google finds some opportunity to exploit, some service to provide.

I just went to Google Maps this morning for some idea on directions to a location I don't visit often. There it is: a little walking icon. And, a caution:


It's hard for me to imagine how a company so large and that has grown so quickly could continue to drive income and innovation simultaneously. Sort of mind boggling, isn't it? I mean, they dominate in many areas that they choose to serve and generate cash flow while supporting a high share price -- still hovering at around 330.

I think it's a good thing to wonder about companies like these from time to time. While we might be inclined to ask "how do they do it?", I think a more important question would be "why do they do it?" It reminds of the answer that Peter Block gave to a questioner years ago: "If you focus on the 'why,' the 'how' will take care of itself." That's a discipline I have incorporated into my life. For good value.

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Capitalism: Our Best Option?

One of the Most Inefficient Methods for Organizing Markets and Economies

So, it wasn't like someone woke up one day and said: "Let's organize our markets around supply and demand, skills, exploitation of free market opportunities." That's what we got, though.

As I work to find new clients and new problems to solve, it's clear to me that capitalism is, at best, highly inefficient. It's also about the only thing that works fairly well with humans. At least, at this point in our evolution.

How did this come to me? Well, I'm looking for new clients and...even being humble, it's pretty clear that I have some unique talents. But, here's the rub, look at what I have to go through to get some opportunities to help...Wouldn't it be more efficient if there were some central clearing house that was in charge of delegating work and projects to people like me? They would be able to match up talents and personalities with needs and...we'd be off.

Personally, I think this is a great idea. Until my neighbor has dinner with the guy in charge of handing out the assignments and says, in a rather gruff voice, "Uh, my cousin Vinny needs some woik, so yaw gunna giv 'em some woik, right? Aw, dat beautiful dauda of yaws is going to need some new " Well, you get the point. I'll stick with capitalism. I got my own cousin Vinny to take care of.

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Trench Business-fare

Heads Down, We're In The Trenches!
I'm in the process of pitching an idea to use all of the unused consultant time and talent in California to help non-profits improve performance. I can't give the work away! Why? Heads down, baby!

OK, these are bad / hard times; I'll admit that. (I've already written about it.) So, you know, with things so messed up, what if we try something new? Could we do much worse? So, get your heads out of the trenches (I don't often give advice, so listen up!) and look up over the battlefield: do you see any dead bodies, casualties? No, they've gone home to nurse their wounds.

So, I'm trying to pitch this idea that would help out volunteers, non-profits but I can't get anybody to look over the debris, the mud and listen to what I'm pitching. (BTW, it's a good idea; a damn good idea and it needs an audience, some partners.)
I don't think these folks are all that different from the ones in the for-profit world: hard times, hunker down, keep your head low! Wrong! Time to do something big. C'mon, if you mess up, Obama will cover for you.

The landscape is pretty; trees are blossoming. But most folks wouldn't know that; they're wearing tattered uniforms and staring down at the mud/dirt/slop and wondering how they're going to keep their boots dry.

C'mon. Build a ladder and climb out of that trench; this is not a war: this is an exercise. So, get out there and move around.
Alright, I know this is some optimistic stuff (maybe my meds have kicked in) and I'm not as grumpy as I normally am. Get over it.

Life Coaching: What Is This? Trendy, Chic or Just a Rehash?

Life Coaching: What Is It? Why Is It An Issue Right Now?

These guys whose pictures are shown here represent the old kind of coaching. You can sum up their approach in about six words: Do it or I'll hurt you.

We call that a coercive approach. Many executives and managers still, unfortunately, use this method. (It's a wonder that our productivity is as high as it is with these kinds of tactics employed.)  Coercion is efficient but not effective.

Life coaching is new. It's not psychotherapy but...it's sorta like it. It's not mentoring though...there are components of that. It's not yelling, that's for sure. At least, I never yell. But I do care.  (My parents tried to persuade me that their yelling was because they cared.  I knew better.)

I consider it nothing more than common sense: all jobs have gotten more complicated.  Expectations are higher.  Why shouldn't the folks doing the work get some help?  Some organizations, in the past, provided mentoring or guidance. Now, it's sink or swim.  Executives, Team Leaders, Managers need to find the help where they can -- if it's not coming from within the organization, look outside.  And, establish a budget for that help just as if it were any another professional service that you were buying: engineering; collections, etc.

What these life coaches, like me, are helping their clients with is both skills development and balance.  Yes, there is an underlying emotional component; there always is: we're humans.  So, addressing those issues is part of the set of tasks in front of us.  Integrating the psychological with the practical is waltz that we help with; it's another kind of dance that allows people in business to be more productive and more secure in their methods.

I'm also the "go to" guy when there is a crisis; I can help my clients talk through and examine options so that s/he ends up appearing to be in control.  Appearances; the ultimate goal?  Hardly.

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Two Buckets: A New Concept About Work

Give Your People A Way to Invest Themselves in Their Work
Do it my way. Why? Because I said so. Sounds like a mom dealing with a three year old: defiant, oppositional. Might be needed in that situation. But at work?
We are meaning making beings. Work provides a good part of our meaningful activity. Don't underestimate that or trivialize that.
Here's an idea that provides the communication vehicle to assure that you, the boss, get what you want (or think you want or need) and your workers, team members -- whatever you want to call them -- get a chance to invent themselves in their work.
Bucket #1: (You can actually bring in two buckets to do just this.) This is the bucket in which you put all the tasks and methods that are not negotiable. Not right now anyway. If you wanted to be really clear about it, print out all of these items. For example, you can't negotiate on the language one uses in emails: it must be professional. No slang, no expletives. Put that in this bucket.
Bucket #2: These are all the methods, behaviors that are negotiable. You and your people can collaborate on the list of things that goes into this: how your desk is organized (how messy it is); chewing gum at work; how you decorate your workspace; the order which you choose to get your work done in the day, etc. The more specific you can be, the better. The list is, in most organizations, quite big. (I'm sure even the Chinese bureucracy, as an example, can't rule out the individual's contribution.)
What do you end up with? Two buckets full of a bunch of papers. Some could be handwritten; use your imagination!
In the first one, there will be only a few pieces -- 10-20 in all. The second bucket will have, could have 30 or more. Depends on your imagination: walk around the workspace while you're doing this exercise instead of sitting in an office and you'll notice all of the opportunities.
The psychological impact will be huge: I, the worker, gets this impression that I have control over a lot of what I do. I am not downtrodden or put upon; I'm a creator. I have power. Yeah!
Is this a gimmick? Of course it is. And, I'll come up with another one in a week. This is part of the boss' attempt at reinvention, innovation, self-investment. Coming up with new, workable, relevant gimmmicks. Some don't or won't work. Some will. Experiment; that's the only way we'll find out what does work.