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Uh, what? Now, try reading the title of this article backwards, starting from the far right and reading to the left. It likely took you a few seconds to do that, going letter-by-letter to make the title out: "Riding a Backwards Bicycle".

You know, you've spent your whole life paving pathways in your brain to read from left-to-right. It's a well-ingrained habit that is difficult to change.

What about another ingrained habit, like riding a bike. What if a bike was set up "backwards" in some way? Could you ride it?

Take a few minutes to watch this entertaining video to learn more. You'll find the time well-spent and may even want to share it with your friends.

So what does this all of this have to do with strategic planning, leadership, management, and running a nonprofit? A ton. Essentially, building your organization's capacity is often about overwriting old habits with new ones. Just like learning to ride a different type of bike.

What are some of those old habits that you might like to change? Try these:

• Writing strategic plans but not implementing them.

• Waiting to the last minute to complete grants.

• Doing more work in the evenings and weekends than you'd like.

• Viewing funders as people that support you (versus people that you support too).

• Providing the executive director with sporadic performance reviews.

• Doing everything yourself and not delegating very effectively.

You may not view these as habits, but they are. They're individual and organizational habits. And, like the guy in the video, with some insights and a committed practice, you can change them.

Which brings me to an excellent resource for you if you'd like to learn more about changing habits: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and In Business by Charles Duhigg. I read this book last year and have meaning to write about it ever since. It's fascinating. Duhigg provides a fantastic overview of how habits form and how you can change them. So, if you're serious about making changes in your life or organization, the concepts in this book are gold. The ideas will even help you ride a backwards bicycle if you'd like...

Charles Duhig - The Power of Habit

Why I'm Happy to be a Freak

LG Cosmos flip phone

(Note: I wrote this back in early 2016 (despite the 2019 date above). Well, in 2017 I ended up migrating to an iPhone. It just became super obvious that the dumbphone was holding me back from providing my team and customers with the support they deserved. The shift was one of necessity to serve better.)

In the high-tech San Francisco area where I live, I'm a freak. You see, I'm one of the few that choose to use a dumbphone instead of a smartphone. A picture of my humble little LG Cosmos flip phone is above. It's decidedly not very cool. It just makes phone calls, texts, and takes horrible 1.3-megapixel photos. And I couldn't be happier.

I've made that choice not because I'm fearful of technology. I've designed and built electric cars. I've produced websites, built awesome spreadsheets, and co-founded a strategic planning company that has built a strategic planning software platform. I'm comfortable with technology.

And, I don’t have anything against smartphones. A while back I tried out both the iPhone and a Droid for a few weeks. They were incredible in the millions of things they could do. But that's just it. I don't need my phone to do a million things. I just need it to make phone calls and send texts. (I use my laptop to send emails and conduct all of my other internet-based business.) So after a few weeks, I returned the amazing smartphones and went back to my dumb phone. I realized that, when compared to the iPhone/Droid, my flip phone helped me to:

• Disconnect and keep my life a little simpler.

• Maintain better control of my time.

• Focus on those around me rather than get distracted by the cool apps on the phone.

Basically, the smartphones weren't the best fit for me. It turns out that I'm not alone in my perspective. Check out these articles that convey similar sentiments:

• Why I Still Use a Dumb Phone (And Have No Plan to Change)

• Why My iPhone is Better as a Dumbphone

So, that's my phone story. I share it with you with the intention to help you think a little bit about your phone choices. Whatever type of phone you use, I hope it is meeting your needs. If you're like me, sometimes I get sucked into the cool gadgets before I realize what's going on. Perhaps this article will help you pause for a moment and consider your options. You know, I'll probably have to get a smartphone at some point. Or at least a smarter phone than the one I have now. But in the meantime, I'm happy being a freak.  

What Your Nonprofit Can Learn from a Pizza Joint

I'm a huge pizza fan. Especially the deep-dish, Chicago-style variety. Which is why for thirty years I've been a fan of Zachary's Chicago Pizza.

I'm not alone in my affection. They've won over 170 "best pizza" awards here in the San Francisco area.

So what makes them so special? Well, about twenty years ago I read an article where the founder, Zachary, described that their success was based largely upon one thing: doing one thing very, very well. In this case, it was making a stuffed deep-dish pizza. At the time they didn't make thin pizzas. Or sandwiches. Or lasagne. Or any other dish that you can get at other pizza restaurants. Rather, they focused all of their efforts on making one kind of pizza and doing it extremely well. This focus allowed them to excel.

That article struck a chord with me.  I began to notice how businesses and organizations typically succeeded in direct correlation to how focused their products, programs, and services were. For example:

• Henry Ford reportedly said that "We'll build you any type of car as long as it's a black Model T."

• When they first started out, McDonalds focused exclusively on serving only a burger, fries, and a drink. They didn't expand their menu until they got their core product completely dialed in.

• In this Harvard Business Review article, the authors state that "the truth is that the really successful companies are highly focused, achieving unprecedented efficiencies by designing a business model with a razor-thin focus and learning to do the one thing really well."

• That concept — doing one thing really well — is what this great book is all about: The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results.

• A well-publicized tech company, 37Signals, recently dropped all of their products except one, Basecamp. They then renamed their company after this one product. (Here's another, similar article.)

• Teach for America skyrocketed to nonprofit success, in part, because of their singular focus on one program: placing talented recent college graduates into school districts with teacher shortages.

• One of our nonprofit clients, Vida Verde Nature Education, has had spectacular success, in part due to its singular focus on delivering only one environmental education program.

• And in our business, we've experienced growth and stronger customer service as a result of focusing specifically on delivering strategic planning to mission-driven leaders and their organizations.

So, perhaps you're buying into the idea of how greater focus can lead to greater success for your organization. But what if your organization has already drifted from its core mission and has adopted a variety of other programs and services? How can you refocus?

One of the best tools that I've found for this is called the Matrix Map. From this article, the Matrix Map "is a visual tool that plots all of the organization’s activities—not just its programs—into a single, compelling image. By illustrating the organization’s business model—through a picture of all activities and the financial and mission impact of each one—it supports genuinely strategic discussions."

The Matrix Map is described in full detail in Steve Zimmerman and Jeanne Bell's book, The Sustainability Mindset: Using the Matrix Map to Make Strategic Decisions.

I've used the tool with our customers and found it to be very helpful in assessing what programs and services to keep. If you buy the book be sure to read through the entire process before beginning. You may find some shortcuts that will help you streamline the process for your particular situation.