There’s a pattern I see all too often at nonprofits, and it goes something like this: a manager has a troubled team/employee/division, and spends a lot of time trying to address it. They meet with those troubled team members and spend hours sorting out a plan to address the problems. There are follow up conversations, performance improvement plans, and often very tense meetings trying to get on the same page. Often, managers try to solve the problem by throwing resources at it, like additional employees, training, and a bigger budget.

What gets left out? Those productive team members who are doing strong work and getting results. Often without making a conscious choice to do so, managers are spending less time with the most impactful members of the organization. Decisionmakers may repeatedly choose to direct additional resources away from the teams that are doing well because there’s an impression that those teams don’t “need” it.

This can turn into a vicious cycle, where unproductive or struggling teams and team members get more and more resources while your top performers are frustrated, overlooked, and under-supported. More than once, I’ve seen a strong performer leave an organization over just this problem.

It’s very useful to watch for this, especially when budgeting and thinking about resources. As a manager, ask yourself: which of my team members is doing the absolute best work right now? And then: how can I support them so they can have a bigger impact?

Then take a hard look at how you are allocating your time and organizational resources. Are you spending the majority of your time with the lowest performers on staff, either directly or indirectly? Are you allocating a lion’s share of the budget to addressing underperforming teams? If so, what message it that sending about the organization’s priorities?

Managers have to expend energy addressing low performance; that’s a reality. But it is a grave mistake to let low performance be the primary issue you’re working on. Instead, remember that a big part of your role as a manger is seeing what is working well, elevating it, and helping to increase its momentum, its impact, or its sustainability. That attention and support on high performance will have an outsized impact on the organization’s effectiveness and culture.

Interested in doing a deep dive on your nonprofit organizational culture and thinking about how you can spend energy on what matters most? Schedule an initial call today.

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