Blog

A client said this to me the other day after we had presented the findings of a research project. Why did this surprise me? I hope that every single client we work with has a passion for the information we are helping them to compile and making meaning of. It...

I promise, this is not about finding the fountain of youth. But I think this is on the minds of most nonprofit leaders right now. At face value, we are afraid that our supporters will retire, die, lose their capacity to give money. On a deeper level, I think we are...

How far must we look to find unanticipated blessings in what we have all experienced in the last two years? For one leader in our network, not far. "There has been unanticipated blessing in how donors have shown up in the last two years." For many organizations this...

Has anyone else noticed a significant increase in the number of sales messages that are showing up via email and LinkedIn since the beginning of the year? This is on top of the frequent phone calls I get trying to sell me an extended car warranty or urging me to...

My email inbox has been inundated lately with offers to generate more business leads than I could possibly know what to do with. I haven’t asked, but since Outsight works with leaders who share our values of fearless questioning and respectful listening, I am...

Creative questions accompany and guide us as we peer into the mist of disruption, complexity, and chaos.  Good questions prompt us in the pursuit of what it means to build an enduring enterprise and what form future value might take.  But good questions also require...

This may be the best phrase I have heard all month. Church as a verb. The Network leader who said it, said it with the best of intentions. He was responding to a story of God showing up, in the least likely of places and in the most unexpected ways, for someone who...

“Everyone is trying to find the quick, easy solution,” I heard from one network member recently. “It doesn’t exist.”When things are hard, we look for something that will make the pain go away fast, like pulling our hand out of the fire. But sometimes the hard points...

I had a conversation with a Network member the other day about margin stacking. Margin stacking is the cost or profit margin that each member of the supply chain contributes to bring a product to the end user. That’s the official definition. I am thinking about an...

I think this statement perfectly sums up much of what I have been hearing in the Network recently. While the last year has been a time of tremendous creativity, not all of the ideas that we come up with are good ones, and I would suggest even good ideas can be too...

This statement comes from a Network member leading in higher education. Among all of the changes he and his constituents are currently experiencing, this is the primary one he is focused on. How does he know to focus on this? He knows because he spends time listening...

If only we all had a crystal ball. It would be so easy to know what to do next in every situation. One of my clients told me the other day that the most helpful thing we could do for her organization is figure out what they should do next. As leaders, how do we do...

We all knew church was changing. The past nine months have accelerated that change. It is so much easier now to stay home, to church-hop online, to compare our local congregation to what others across the country are doing, or not doing. What I have heard from the...

Everyone in the Network is advising their clients to increase relationship-building activity. Relationships are what we crave most in times of uncertainty. Donor experience journey What do your donors experience when they interact with your organization? Are you...

By now we are all a little “zoomed out.” We are hungry for real human interaction. Sometimes we think of artists as being at the cutting edge of technology. My perception of artists is that they are often the first to try new things. But now I hear from the Network...

What did so many of us do with all that extra time we had on our hands when the Covid-19 lockdown first happened? We looked for ways to learn new things. We encouraged our team members to learn new things. The strategic role of human capital management In the last few...

In difficult markets it is even more important to understand our customers and build strong relationships. Here are some questions leaders should be asking about their sales process. The answers will help you identify what works, what kinds of customers are most...

While the world is in crisis and no one is sure what will happen next with the global economy, your customers’ priorities, needs, and motivations are changing by the minute. Whether you lead a consumer-facing or B2B organization, your customers are distracted by the...

Great leaders don’t have better answers, they ask better questions. But too often, I have seen organizations miss out on new opportunities, lose market share, fail to respond to shifts in the market, or pursue the wrong strategy. All because they didn’t ask key...