Every nonprofit — whether a charity, professional association, or community group — faces a constant flow of choices. Some are big and irreversible, others small and routine. But all of them involve ‘decision doors’: a threshold between what we know and what’s next. The Decision Doors framework helps us pause at that threshold. Instead of… Continue reading Decision Doors
Tag: deliberation
Reflective (and Deliberative) Scaffolds: Turning Experience into Insight
Reflection and Deliberation as Twin Practices Reflection and deliberation are often treated as separate activities — one looking backward, the other forward. In reality, they are two halves of the same learning loop. Together, they form a disciplined rhythm of practice: Act → Reflect → Learn/Adjust → Deliberate → Act again. The newly published Reflective… Continue reading Reflective (and Deliberative) Scaffolds: Turning Experience into Insight
The Dimensionality of Thought and Ethical Leadership – Part 2 (Praxis)
Praxis and reflective practice “Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realised, applied, or put into practice. “Praxis” may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realising, or practising ideas” (Wikipedia). As its title suggests, this post therefore seeks to assist nonprofit leaders to reflectively apply… Continue reading The Dimensionality of Thought and Ethical Leadership – Part 2 (Praxis)
The Dimensionality of Thought and Ethical Leadership – Part 1 (Theory)
How often have you witnessed a ‘debate’ in which various of the participants are on different wavelengths? One sees the issues as ‘black and white’, while another sees many ‘shades of gray’, and yet another sees layers of complexity in full colour. Even when directors share a common ‘moral lens’ though, their stakeholders don’t. Dealing… Continue reading The Dimensionality of Thought and Ethical Leadership – Part 1 (Theory)
Foundational Thinking for Nonprofit Leaders
The Meta-Taxonomy of Foundational Thinking (MTFT) model was introduced in my previous post (First Principles First). That version has been inverted and expanded in this explanatory article, to address the wider range of considerations involved when using the model for problem solving and decision-making. The header image (From Root to Fruit) uses a tree metaphor… Continue reading Foundational Thinking for Nonprofit Leaders
Balancing ‘long’ and ‘short’ strategic perspectives
The ‘strategic horizon‘ most nonprofits use is between 3-5 years. That seems to be about as far into the future as we feel able to project – either in terms of what we might confidently predict about our operating environment, or the timespan over which we are willing to commit to achieving our goals. Such… Continue reading Balancing ‘long’ and ‘short’ strategic perspectives
Juggling Cats, Chainsaws, & Bowling Balls
Leadership roles often requires a capacity to deal with multiple challenges. Consequently, we need to be able to share our ‘attention budget’ between various roles, functions, priorities, and tasks. Leaders as Jugglers The juggling metaphor is sometimes used to suggest the dexterous handling of these multiple demands. Each metaphoric ‘ball’ is given its due, and… Continue reading Juggling Cats, Chainsaws, & Bowling Balls
“Ask a silly question …
… and you get a silly answer”. You have to ask a sensible question to earn a sensible response. My previous post argued that there is a set of criteria by which we can judge the quality of questions. It may not be immediately obvious to readers of that post that the same set of… Continue reading “Ask a silly question …
Quality Question Quest
A recurring theme of this blog has been the art of question framing. Question types, the skills required to ask them, along with various purposes for which they may be considered, have been the subject of earlier reflection and suggestions on this blog. See especially ‘A Question of Skillful Questioning‘. This post takes up the… Continue reading Quality Question Quest
Masks, blindfolds, hats, and armour
We wear different hats according to the roles we are asked, or choose, to perform. Some of these roles also involve masks, which conceal our true feelings and views on the activities and tasks we undertake. Some work roles require us to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) and clothing, while for many, just wearing ‘corporate’… Continue reading Masks, blindfolds, hats, and armour