The most commonly used form of performance measurement is perhaps grades. They are used to assess and evaluate students’ academic levels and progress. However, as anyone familiar with the debate on grading knows, raw numbers provide a poor and nuanced evaluation. Without context, they tell an incomplete story.
The same is true for the data you collect in your change project. Without honest and trust-building conversations, you will never gain a deep understanding of whether your efforts are delivering the desired results.
In Part 7 of our series, The Funder’s Guide to Change, we outline what it takes to have the necessary and meaningful conversations between you and the participants in your change community.
Series: Funders Guide to Change
As a funder, donor, or investor, you play a special role in systemic change. You are the one who points out the overarching goal and assembles the team that can make the necessary change happen.
To succeed, you must ensure that the goal is clear, your community is in sync, and that you consistently measure the development that takes place.
In this series, based on Adam Luecking’s book Social Sector Hero, we go through eight key strategies that can help you build an effective, system-changing alliance.
If you want to read Adam Luecking’s book in its entirety, you can download it for free as a PDF here.
Effective Questions and Deep Listening
All the steps we’ve covered so far in this series are important. But they mean nothing if you cannot communicate effectively with your people and the participants in your change community.
It is your task to create a safe space where you can delve deep into the stories behind the measurements. And the best way to do that is through trust-building conversations.
We call it effective dialogue. And let’s start with a definition:
Effective dialogue consists of communicative actions between two or more parties, guided by effective questions and deep listening, that result in mutual understanding and corresponding action.
Effective dialogue happens face-to-face—and preferably in a physical meeting. There must be room for everyone to express their opinions and challenge the assumptions your project is based on. This requires mutual respect and high trust.
It’s a good idea to spend time preparing the ground for fruitful conversations—for example, by giving participants in your change community an opportunity to reflect, investigate relevant matters, and perhaps sketch out their thoughts in advance.
Be sure to end your meetings by confirming that you agree on the next steps. In other words, who does what, and when?
When done wisely, you’ll find that effective dialogue leads to greater trust, stronger engagement, accountability, and more accurate data.
Grab the Data Monster by the Horns
Under the bed of every grantee lurks a data monster—the fear that you will cut their funding if the data shows things aren’t going quite as planned.
This—not entirely unfounded—concern can cause grantees to shy away from conversations about their performance, which is unproductive. Your job is to create a safe space for constructive conversations.
The trick is to treat your grantees as allies on a mission to create social change. Focus on driving continuous improvement, and be sure to assure your grantees that you won’t abandon them at the first sign of trouble but will see setbacks as opportunities for mutual learning.
The more secure your grantees feel, the more they will view conversations with you as a tool to achieve the common purpose.
For you, conversations are also a tool to optimize and protect your investments. The better you understand your grantees’ unique stories and challenges, the better you can work together to fix what isn’t working. This will further strengthen your collaboration.
More Trust Leads to Better Dialogue
Trust is one of the most important factors in the relationship between you and your grantees. It increases transparency and strengthens engagement, contributing to a sense of psychological safety that leads everyone to perform more effectively.
Psychological safety is a prerequisite for effective dialogue.
According to Professor Amy Edmondson from Harvard Business School, psychological safety is a “shared belief held by members of a team that the team is a safe place for interpersonal risk-taking.”
Moreover, psychological safety is “a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up.”
When people feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to contribute valuable input that can improve decision-making, admit mistakes, collaborate, and take on new roles.
So, how do you create psychological safety?
Whether you’re dealing with employees or grantees, the art is to involve them in important organizational processes. Your task is to help them see how these processes contribute to the common purpose.
You should also actively and clearly embrace people’s differences, loudly acknowledge the value of diverse perspectives, include employees in decisions about their work, treat them fairly, and foster positive relationships.
Express your thoughts clearly and transparently, and avoid making decisions without first examining the context.
Inspiration: Here Are the Effective Questions
Doug Krug is an expert in leadership and organization with over 30 years of experience helping top executives build high-performing organizations.
In 2008, Doug Krug developed what he calls effective questions for successful leadership.
The questions are typically open, focus on the positive, and encourage action. They should create a sense of possibility and avoid creating guilt, which can trigger defensiveness.
Here are four categories of questions you can use based on Doug Krug’s effective questions:
General Questions:
What are your strengths?
What improvements have you made recently?
What have been the benefits of these improvements?
Which areas of your performance are you most proud of?
What would you specifically like to be recognized for in your performance?
Questions Focused on a Specific Grantee’s Performance Measurement:
What would it look like if you could suddenly perform significantly better?
What are the two or three things that contribute most to your success?
What can I do to truly support your efforts?
What similar organizations do you know that have had particular success in achieving results in this area?
Questions to Help You Get From Talk to Action:
How are we doing?
What are the key factors influencing progress?
Which key partners can play a role in improving results?
What would lead to better results?
Are the suggestions appropriate responses to the challenges?
Is there evidence behind the proposed actions?
Do we have low-cost or free options?
What do you suggest to improve the results?
How strongly will the proposed strategy or action impact the data?
Can the proposed strategy or action be implemented?
Who does what, and when?
Helpful Questions for Grantees Facing an Obstacle:
What options do you have for getting past the obstacle?
What has worked most effectively for you in similar situations?
Who else has successfully handled a similar obstacle?
Get Off to a Good Start
Initial conversations with new grantees lay the groundwork for trust, engagement, and accountability.
In 2013, Caroline Altman Smith, Senior Program Officer at The Kresge Foundation, shared her tips for productive conversations with brand-new grantees. They still hold up today. Here are five selected tips:
- Assign your grantees a fixed point of contact in your organization, and ask for a fixed contact person from the grantee.
- Keep as much communication as possible face-to-face—especially when it comes to important conversations.
- Make reporting requirements clear from the start. Ensure that your grantee understands the culture and structure for reporting in your organization, including reporting templates, data management systems, and guidelines. This may include training in using your software and understanding your evaluation criteria.
- Avoid communication droughts. Check-in regularly, and don’t shy away from informal contact.
- Be transparent—especially when it’s difficult. Talk openly about anything that affects your relationship—including financial difficulties, staff changes, or factors impacting your program’s implementation.
Ask the Right Questions
Effective dialogue requires preparation. Make sure to have a handful of questions thought out regarding the story behind the data, effective elements, strategies, and action plans.
This makes good use of time.
Remember to ask questions before you start giving advice. And consider ending by asking what you can do to help a positive development.
With positive, open-ended questions, you give your grantees space to discuss their challenges and needs, and you gain unique information that allows you to promote your collaboration.
They may need better data infrastructure or more flexible funding. Perhaps they want to explore the possibility of collaborating with other grantees.
You won’t know unless you ask.
That was this week’s article in the series The Funders Guide to Change. Next week, we’ll cover the significance of presenting your results in an open and transparent way.
