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 weeks, I have heard many leaders talk about a new understanding of how important their people are, and how important it is to take care of their people. One of the things that became glaringly obvious for many of us is that in order to pivot and respond to new challenges, we have to keep our minds sharp and we have to be able to innovate. That takes intentional management of our knowledge workers.
Sharpening our consulting practice
Consultants, too, have spent much of their time in the past few months sharpening their practices. Some have been busy, some have not. It seems to depend on the kinds of services one provides and what kinds of clients one serves. I have lived through economic upheavals, perhaps none exactly like this one, but my experience has been that two things happen in a down economy: 1) the pool of consultants grows, because a whole crop of laid-off knowledge workers decide they would rather control their own destiny than go through that again, and 2) consultants who make a difference for their clients get busy – because everything about running an organization gets harder, and good leaders know when they need help.
Data analytics for nonprofit organizations
How do you learn more about the people in your donorbase? For nonprofit organizations your donors are an important human capital asset. More nonprofit leaders are looking for ways to better understand their donors. One way to learn about your donors is to ask them what they think. Another is to use data analytics (big data) tools to glean more from the data you already have in-house. You don’t have to be a big organization to benefit from big data tools, but you do need to work with someone who knows what they are doing.