Did you take the tour?

We are excited to share our new website with you! After months of designing and planning, we finally launched our new site in the beginning of August. Have you had a chance to tour it?

You may be asking yourself, “What is different with the new site, and why are we so excited to share it?” Well, for starters, it’s a whole new design. When we first started talking about what we wanted to do with the website, we all came to the conclusion that we wanted something clean, something professional, but at the same time fun – which is why we have a stock ticker on our homepage! We also wanted to showcase our different aspects of research, and also highlight Strategic Planning more.

Some of our new highlights to our new website are the Strategic Planning FAQs, our TWI Nonprofits Matter, TWI Bank, and Around Greater Reading. Let’s go into a little more detail about these different sections.

Strategic Planning/FAQs

What is strategic planning? Why does your company need it? What are the benefits? Our strategic planning page, along with our FAQs, goes into detail about why strategic planning is important to your business and answers the questions you may be asking yourself to decide if it is what your company needs.

TWI Nonprofits Matter

Our TWI Nonprofits Matter brand is dedicated to helping nonprofits achieve their mission and vision. In our TWI Nonprofits Matter brand, we offer Board Assessments and Executive Director Assessments to help nonprofits. Learn more about our processes, and read testimonials from nonprofits in the area about our great assessment services.

TWI Bank

Our TWI Bank brand is something new to us, and we are proud to offer services to banks. What does our TWI Bank brand offer? We offer board assessments for both banks and credit unions so they can gather perceptions from board members in an effort to meet regulatory standards and measuring board performance, compliance, and efficiency. Also, our TWI Bank Board Self-Assessments meets FDIC requirements –an added bonus!

Around Greater Reading

One of our newest pages, and something close to our hearts, is our Around Greater Reading page. We wanted to be able to share with readers our love for our community since we are Reading Proud. This page focuses on the latest happenings around our community, but also highlights our community service as a team. 

To view our new website, click here!

Answers to Your Burning Questions

Our for-profit and nonprofit clients often ask us, “Why should an organization do strategic planning?”

The primary motive for organizations to do strategic planning is to make decisions about the future of the organization based on pre-planning research and purposeful, visionary thinking. There are many specific reasons for an organization to initiate a strategic planning process, including the following:

• give the organization better control/reaction over external forces
• serve as a tool for decision making and resource allocation
• bring everyone together in the organization so that they are on the same page
• raise leadership team members, employees, board members, etc., awareness of current issues and operations
• reawaken and motivate key people within the organization
• position the company/agency for a merger or joint venture
• create a document suitable for fundraising, investor relation, and public relations
• increase morale within an organization and develop a sense of trust and cohesion
• set the stage for the organization to make a "quantum leap" to a new level of product/service/program development or functioning

Just a quick hit Q&A in case you were wondering!  

If you would like to know more about Strategic Planning, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Is your organizational culture a good one?

Organizational culture is the unwritten and often unspoken assumptions on which all organizational decisions are made and action is taken. It is the result of demonstrated behavior over a period of time. In other words, it is behavior that has become organizational habit over the years. Organizations pursuing a true quality culture are finding that developing the long-term behavior consistent with that pursuit is more difficult than realized.

Management behaviors consistent with a quality culture include coaching, guiding, and facilitating an empowered work force toward organizational goals and objectives. In more traditionally managed organizations, management behavior involves goal attainment through the direction of others. Problem solving is largely seen as a management responsibility. The challenge many managers face today is demonstrating quality behavior in "moments of truth." Moments of truth are those daily situations that require immediate attention. Often times, our routine behavioral tendencies guide us to actions that can only be defined as disempowering. However, it is in these situations where we have the best opportunity to demonstrate our organization's respect for the ability of our employees to add value, and to have an empowered workforce.

Below are some things to remember when you are faced with moments of truth.

•Think before you act. "How can I involve and empower my people in this situation?"

•Seek first to understand; get all of the facts straight before moving forward.

•Your employees are watching your behavior; set a good example that is consistent with the message you want to send.

•You are not expected to have all the answers; respect the idea of teamwork in problem solving.

•Think of how you would like to be treated by your manager. Most times, this will hold true for how you manage your people.

If you are trying to ensure a culture of employee involvement and empowerment, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can provide you with a tried and true method for obtaining employee feedback that can help you strengthen your organizational culture.

Employee Surveys = Involvement and Empowerment

Ongoing customer satisfaction is a result of a focused and well-managed process for continuous improvement. Design your products and services to meet or exceed customer expectations, and you'll enhance your ability to grow your market share. Design the processes that provide those products and services to be performed in the most effective, efficient, reliable, and consistent manner possible, and you’ll enhance your ability to meet your organizational strategies. Proactively involve and empower your people in the previously mentioned steps, and you have the elements for gaining and sustaining long-term competitive advantage.

Even in organizations where there is a demonstrated understanding of this logic, many efforts to succeed in implementing strategies to achieve a more empowered workforce fail. Many times, this failure can be attributed to a lack of understanding regarding the nature of empowerment and the four basic elements required for successful implementation.

Involvement and Empowerment

One of the foundational principles of continuous improvement is “respect for employees demonstrated by employee involvement and empowerment.” The goal of this principle is respect. It involves genuine respect and the understanding that employees have the ability, based on their knowledge and experience, to add value to the organization’s success. While most organizational leaders intellectually and emotionally buy-in to this principle, the positive results of involvement and empowerment are sometimes elusive. To help understand why this occurs, let’s look at how the words “involvement” and “empowerment” are defined and used in a business environment.

Involvement is the ongoing process of informing employees and gathering input from them. This process results in a workforce that continuously thinks of ways to improve performance and acts in a manner consistent with that thinking. Involvement takes the form of information-sharing and can be accomplished in a number of ways. It can be achieved in state-of-the-company meetings, informal group sessions, one-on-one discussions, the Intranet, etc. Whatever the method, the objective must be to provide employees with an ongoing understanding of what is happening within the organization (and why), and how their actions impact the success of the organization.

Empowerment is the ongoing process of providing anyone in an organization with the ability to address anything that stands in the way of doing the right thing at any given time. It means that an employee is given the ability to solve a problem or improve a condition. It means that, at no time, does an employee feel ‘trapped’ in a situation. If something is standing in the way of a quality result, the employee can contribute to correcting that situation. Successful empowerment can be achieved by addressing four basic elements or “tools.”

Four Basic Elements of Empowerment

Belief
Employees need to genuinely believe the company’s leadership sincerely intends for them to be empowered. An employee also needs to believe that he or she has the capability of performing in an empowered manner. Rarely will an organization experience successful empowerment if employees do not believe management is supportive of their individual ability to solve a problem or improve a condition.

Information
Employees need to have information regarding the results of their actions, as well as information relative to the processes they are performing. In order to determine the need to solve a problem or improve a condition, employees need to receive feedback on these measures. If employees are unaware of the conditions that surround them, the chances of developing empowered actions are minimal at best.

Skills
Employees need the skills necessary to act in an empowered manner. These skills fall into two areas; technical skills and interpersonal skills. Technical skills involve those skills specific to an employee’s job. Acting in an empowered manner requires that an employee be trained and consistently updated on the technical skills needed to perform in their area of responsibility. Interpersonal skills involve the skills required for an employee to effectively work with others when acting in an empowered manner. These skills include effective communication and respect for themselves and others, as well as understanding personal styles and how they affect individual and team performance.

Opportunity
This element involves providing employees with the time, tools, and resources necessary to act in an empowered manner. Expecting empowered actions while neglecting the required time, tools, and resources will result in employee frustration. Additionally, it is extremely important to provide employees with the process and guidelines for being empowered. Employees need to understand the steps they can take to solve a problem or improve a condition. Without clearly defined guidelines and processes, many well-intentioned empowerment initiatives bring unsatisfactory and, in some cases, disastrous results.

How involved and empowered do employees in your organization feel? 

There is one way to find out – ask them. Conduct an Employee Perception Survey. Putting in place an effective employee feedback program is the responsibility of strong and confident leaders. In order to develop an involved and empowered workforce, an organization’s leadership team must provide the necessary coaching, guidance, and facilitation to foster its development. Identifying the areas employees feel are in need of special attention and focus will help direct those development efforts.

If you are trying to ensure a culture of employee involvement and empowerment, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can provide you with a proven method for obtaining employee feedback that can serve as the foundation for the elements of genuine employee engagement.

Are you providing unrivaled customer service?

Because the business climate in virtually all industries has become increasingly competitive, and the marketplace continues to change, it is even more important for all employees of an organization to demonstrate responsiveness and respect toward their customers. This means developing a whole new orientation toward customer service.

Business in general is becoming much more customer-focused in this new era of ubiquitous technology that allows for instant personal contact. Companies are recognizing that the degree to which they meet or exceed their customers' expectations will dictate their relative success in the marketplace. In order to be customer-oriented, it is important that your people understand these expectations and perform accordingly. It is also important that your people develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable and empower them to demonstrate customer responsiveness and respect.

Two Points of Focus

Unrivaled Customer Service begins with two points of focus, customer expectations and organizational outcomes. Customer expectations fall into two areas: needs and wants. When a customer's problem is solved, his or her needs are met. When a customer is made to feel good, his or her wants are satisfied. Providing unrivaled customer service means that your people understand both your customers' needs AND wants.

The first step in identifying what customers want and need is to ask them. Conducting a Customer Perception Survey to identify exactly how your customers view you is essential to understanding how to satisfy them in the future. Annual customer surveys are a best practice among the top organizations that taut unrivaled service.

Organizational outcomes fall into three areas: quality in fact, process outcomes, and final results. If your organization is not getting the outcomes it needs to survive and succeed, then you risk being marginalized in the market, or worse yet, going out of business. It is critical that you are able to balance customer expectations with organizational outcomes.

The Internal Customer/Supplier Chain

Experience shows that most external customer disappointments are created by internal process problems. Often, people within the organization are not working together to serve the customer. An effective way to deal with this is to clarify the internal customer/supplier chain. Every employee in your organization has other employees who are their internal customers. Everyone also has internal suppliers, people they depend on for support to do their jobs.

Organizations with a focus on unrivaled service work hard to clarify this internal customer/supplier chain. Every person needs to know precisely who his or her internal customers are, and what they need and want. Imagine everyone in your organization focusing on their internal customer, and working together to serve your external customers.

Knowing what your customers need and want and delivering it are two different things. The critical ingredients in are people and processes. First, your people must have the knowledge and skills to serve your customers effectively. Second, your internal processes must be designed for unrivaled service.

If you are trying to differentiate your organization through unrivaled service, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can help you identify what your customers need and want, not only today, but in the future, so that you can be the consistent market leader.

Tweed-Weber Announces a Turnkey, Cost-Effective Library Board Self-Assessment

Reading, PA - Tweed-Weber, Inc., a research and strategic planning consulting firm that works with numerous libraries and library systems in Pennsylvania, is pleased to announce a turnkey process for library board evaluation. The Library Board Self-Assessment was developed to allow a board to assess:

• How the board operates structurally
• How the board operates behaviorally
• How the board performs its duties
• How well board members operate individually

The Library Board Self-Assessment is 100% confidential for board members and takes only 15-20 minutes to complete. In addition, virtually no staff or management effort from the library is required. Tweed-Weber does all the work with an all-inclusive, turnkey process that includes the assessment, online implementation, data analysis, and a final report.

The ONLY thing a library director or board chair needs to do is forward an email (prepared by Tweed-Weber) to board members asking them to complete the self-assessment. That's it. Tweed-Weber does the rest.

The Library Board Self-Assessment can be delivered in as little as two weeks from the time it is ordered, and once a base year is on record, it is benchmarkable in future years.

The Library Board Self-Assessment was designed specifically to enhance the performance of library boards as they work to transform their libraries into Libraries of the Future. 

For more information, contact Sharon Danks, Vice President, Tweed-Weber, Inc. through any of the following methods: via telephone at 1-800-999-6615, by email at sdanks@tweedweber.com, on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.), or on Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Are You the Leader of Your Pack?

by Al Weber, President, Tweed-Weber, Inc.

As a research company that does strategic planning, we view all of our research design and reporting activities through the lens of “what does this say about our client’s degree of differentiation.” Good strategy directs an organization to leverage its strengths to mitigate its weaknesses to capture market opportunities. However, in the long run, none of this matters if it doesn’t enable the organization to gain and sustain a measureable advantage over its competitors.

To identify the competitive point from which our client is starting, we regularly go to our client’s customers and ask them to assess our client relative to other similar organizations. These organizations are frequently direct competitors. It’s at this point we are able to determine if our client is competitively differentiated or just one of the pack. Because we are a non-threatening third party with good interviewing skills, we find our survey respondents are surprisingly candid.

In our survey design process, we will identify a number of performance areas that our client believes are important to their customers. These areas can include customer service, product quality, innovation, relationships, reputation, value for price, overall price, etc. We will then ask those customers to evaluate our client as either the “market leader,” “one of the pack,” or “market follower” in each of those areas. The results speak volumes, and it is often the first time our client has statistically valid confirmation of how differentiated they are (or are not) in their market.

In a recent competitive assessment for a logistics company, for instance, their customers unambiguously declared they were the market leader in all areas except price, where they were rated as competitive or one of the pack. It was exciting to congratulate them for developing a competitive advantage that enabled them to not have to rely on price to sell their services. In another assessment of an apparel manufacturer, we were able to tell our client they were perceived as a market leader in value. This, to the dismay of some sales folks, shot holes in their “our prices are too high” complaints.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to have to tell a new client that they are completely undifferentiated. Worse yet is telling them they are negatively differentiated. That is, they are a market follower, best known for their weaknesses. While this is certainly undesirable news, isn’t it always better to know the bad news than simply suspect it based on declining sales or increasing customer flight? 

Any company that invests in data that can reliably define it as a market leader can plan to capitalize on the opportunities that come from that competitive differentiation. If the company is merely one of the pack or a market follower, it can focus on improving its performance and moving the needle on its market position.

If you would like to know if you're leading the pack, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Tweed-Weber’s Strategic Planning Q&A

1) What is strategic planning?

 

Strategic planning is the process by which an organization envisions its future and develops the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future. The basic steps of the strategic planning process include preplanning research, SWOT analysis, strategic assumptions, identification of key issues facing the organization, and the development of mission and vision statements, long-range strategies, strategic actions and operational objectives. Overall:

• Defining how you will differentiate your organization in its service area.
• Determining the direction in which your organization should be headed.
• Building change activities into the organization’s daily work activities.

2) Why should an organization do strategic planning?

The primary motive for organizations to do strategic planning is to make decisions based on preplanning research and purposeful thinking. There are many specific reasons for an organization to initiate a strategic planning process, including the following:

• provide a structure for management
• give the organization better control over external forces 
• serve as a tool for decision making and resource allocation
• develop a strategy for innovation so the organization can compete effectively
• bring everyone together in the organization so that they are on the same wavelength
• raise management/employee awareness of current issues and operations 
• reawaken and motivate key people within the organization 
• position the organization for a merger or joint venture 
• create a document suitable for fundraising and/or public relations 
• increase morale within an organization and develop a sense of trust and cohesion 
• set the stage for the organization to make a "quantum leap" to a new level of product/service development or functioning

3) What is the difference between strategic planning and annual planning?

Annual planning has an operational focus and is concerned primarily with concrete goal setting and the scheduling of specific tasks to meet these goals. It does not usually concern itself with an analysis of the external environment or the fit between the organization and the environment. Strategic planning gives explicit recognition to the organization’s outside environment and places an emphasis on the organization’s strategic advantage in meeting the contingencies in this environment. Although strategic planning also involves goal setting, it is broader in scope and much more comprehensive than operational planning.

4) How long does it take an organization to complete a strategic plan?

The amount of time it takes an organization to complete a strategic plan varies greatly depending on a number of factors, including; the size and complexity of the organization, past experience with strategic planning, accessibility of planning data, and time and availability of planning participants. In general, it will take an organization about two to three months to complete a strategic planning process.

5) When should an organization do strategic planning?

While there is no “right” time to do strategic planning, it is usually inadvisable to initiate a strategic planning process if the management team is extremely weak, if there are serious internal conflicts, or if top leadership has recently left the organization. There are advantages to doing strategic planning when the organization is in a relatively strong position, as management may feel more confident about undertaking a serious, in-depth examination of products and services. If things are going well, however, people may feel no real need to change. On the other hand, if the organization is in a state of transition and introspection, there may be more openness to a process of renewal and to consideration of a new direction for the organization.

6) How often does an organization have to redo their strategic plan?

It is a good practice to review and update the strategic plan on an annual basis. For most organizations, adjustments are made at the level of strategies and perhaps goals. Most of the time, changes would not be made on an annual basis to the language of the mission and vision statements unless there have been dramatic changes and shifts in the organization's external environment during the past year.

7) Who should staff the strategic planning activity?

There is no one right answer to this question that would apply to a broad range of organizations. It is typically a mixture of management and staff members. However, it is important for one person to be responsible for guiding and monitoring the process. Even if the group uses an outside consultant, it is still important that there be a staff person on the inside who works closely with the consultant and the strategic planning committee. Typically, this staff person is the president.

8) How much do you mix management and staff in planning?

In general, the planning process will be more productive if it includes participation of management and key staff members. In preparing to plan, one of the important steps is the establishment of the strategic planning committee. All members of the planning committee need to receive an orientation to the planning process so that they understand what strategic planning is, the steps involved, as well as the time commitment required. Beyond the strategic planning committee, other stakeholders can be involved in various information gathering activities including completion of surveys, participation in focus groups, and attendance at periodic review sessions.

9) When implementing the strategic plan, what factors most significantly enhance or inhibit that part of the process?

What is always most critical is the level of involvement that people have while developing the strategic plan. In general, if people are involved in the process in meaningful ways, they will be ready to do their part in implementing the plan that results from the process. The opposite is also true - if people whose involvement is critical to the successful implementation of the plan have not been involved in meaningful ways, they will not be excited about the plan nor will they be very motivated to take some responsibility for implementation.

10) How does an organization stay focused on its vision when there is a major change in the organization's management? Does the organization have to start all over?

If the strategic planning process and the development of organizational vision involved a wide circle of management and staff, it is less likely that a change in leadership will cause the organization to lose focus. You don't have to start over in most cases. In fact, having a strategic plan in place should help in recruiting the new leadership.

If you would like to learn more about strategic planning, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Create an Employee "Think Tank"

The saying, “perception is reality” is never more true when observing employees of an organization relative to how they perform and interact with each other on a daily basis. Having a clear and common understanding of employee perceptions offers enormous opportunities for ideas and improvement in the future. Have you ever wondered how to implement an employee survey to help foster high regard and recognition for employees’ thoughts and opinions, and to help them feel like a valuable part of the team? We can help.  

 

There are different types of employee surveys that help to obtain feedback, and the goal of each of those surveys depends on the questions you want to ask.

 

Employee Climate Survey

 

The typical survey we conduct for our clients is an online Employee Perception Survey, also called a “climate survey.” For this kind of employee feedback initiative, you are trying to understand how employees feel about working at the organization. The following categories are normally used as a basis for asking questions:

• Job perception
• Work environment
• Opportunities for involvement and work improvement
• Management support
• Compensation and career advancement
• Education and training
• Overall understanding of (your organization)

Conducting a climate survey is essential in your efforts to identify areas for internal improvement. Retaining employees is a huge issue for most organizations today, and doing all that you can to create a work environment that fosters respect, teamwork, and loyalty is not only the right thing to do, but a smart one as well. A high level of employee retention positively impacts the bottom line.

 

Employee Think Tank Survey

 

Another type of survey that is gaining speed with our clients is an “Employee Think Tank” survey. For this kind of feedback initiative, you are trying to tap into the minds of your employees by asking more strategic questions that could identify potential opportunities for the company based on what they see and experience at work. The following are some questions to ask employees in this type of survey (just to name a few):

• In our current strategic plan, XYZ actions are described as critical elements for reaching our long-term growth plan. Which one do you feel is most critical to our growth in the future, and why?
• What specific factors do you believe influence customers’ purchasing decisions relative to the products/services we offer?
• What are the top three things you believe customers need most from us? 
• What is one idea you have for making it more convenient for customers to do business with us?
• If there is one area in which you feel we have lost the most ground over the past two years, what would that be, and why?
• What factors do you believe stand in the way of our overall growth?
• What customer service/support activity do you think we should offer to satisfy customer needs/demands, but currently we do not provide?
• Overall, what should we STOP doing or offering because you feel it adds little to no value at all to customers?
• If you became President of our organization tomorrow, what’s the one thing you would do immediately to increase sales, and why?

You would be surprised and thrilled with the depth of thinking and feedback these kinds of questions spark in employees (especially those employees in positions that have direct contact with customers and the marketplace). Because they view the organization from different angles, they provide a holistic snapshot that you can feel confident covers all bases within your operations. Implementing an Employee Think Tank survey will help you see things through a different lens that will help ensure you are not missing the obvious when developing strategies and planning for future growth.

 

How much insight, knowledge, and wisdom is being untapped within your organization? An Employee Think Tank survey will help you find out. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). 

Why is Nonprofit Board Member Engagement Critical to Success?

If you are a director of a nonprofit organization, a board chair, and/or a board member, it is your duty to care for the organization in a way that helps to ensure its current and future success. Having engaged board members is crucial to how well your nonprofit organization performs and achieves its mission. Having a disconnected, disengaged board will result in a disconnected, underperforming organization.

At Tweed-Weber, we have a tried-and-true method for conducting a Nonprofit Board of Directors Assessment. It is essential to get answers from each board member relative to the following (just to name a few):

• Do they support the organization’s current mission/purpose?
• Do they believe the organization’s work activities are aligned with its mission/purpose?
• Does the board believe there is a strategic vision of how the organization should be evolving over the next three to five years?
• Does the board have a common understanding of the organization’s planning objectives?
• Does the board regularly discuss how the organization should meet new opportunities and challenges?
• Do board members understand what information they need to make informed, responsible decisions?
• Is the board provided with the information they need to make informed, responsible decisions?
• Do board members have a complete understanding of the organization’s current work activities?
• Do board members understand the key measures that are used for tracking progress toward the organization’s goals?
• Is the board involved with developing strategies for generating resources?
• Are appropriate financial controls in place to ensure the organization’s stable operations?
• Does the board ensure that the budget reflects the priorities established in the annual plan?
• Is there an effective process in place to nominate and select new board members?
• Does the board’s composition reflect the diversity of background, expertise, and other resources needed by the organization?
• Is the size of the board appropriate for effective governance?
• Do board members feel actively engaged in the work of the board?

Whew. That’s a lot. But there’s so much more to be learned in addition to the questions above. Conducting a board of directors assessment has become a best practice of highly successful, highly regarded nonprofit organizations. The collective voice of the board should be heard as a regular part of board management and the way the board functions.

If you would like to learn more about Tweed-Weber’s Nonprofit Board of Directors Assessment, feel free to contact us. We will help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Nonprofit Board Assessments – An Essential Best Practice

The following is the latest edition of our e-newsletter: Know More. Do More. Our e-newsletter highlights the uses and benefits of business-to-business research and brings you timely examples of how companies are using research to achieve a competitive advantage.

It is commonly said that behind every strong nonprofit organization, you will find a strong board of directors. Why? Because the strength of the organization as a whole is a reflection of how well the board operates in its governance function. Virtually every list of best practices for nonprofit boards today includes an annual board self-assessment to allow board members to study their own behavior and lay the groundwork for self-improvement. Also included as a best practice, is an annual performance evaluation of the executive director/CEO conducted by board members. Participation in performance evaluations is a fundamental responsibility of all board members.

At Tweed-Weber, we conduct nonprofit board self-assessments and nonprofit executive director/CEO evaluations. Each one is a turnkey process implemented by Tweed-Weber that takes the work off the plate of board chairs and/or executive directors, so they can focus on the core work and mission of the organization. Tweed-Weber recently conducted board assessments for three local nonprofit organizations. In this edition of Know More. Do More., we share, in Q&A style, feedback from the following nonprofit leaders:

Nonprofit Leader	Function	Organization	Board of Directors Self-Assessment	CEO/Executive Director Performance Evaluation
Nancy Yocom	Board Chair	Berks Encore	X	X
Tammy White	President	United Way of Berks County	X	X
Tim Daley	Executive Director	Habitat for Humanity of Berks County		X

Begin Q&A…

As a board chair, why did you feel it was important to conduct a board assessment and/or a CEO/executive director evaluation?

Nancy Yocom: A board evaluation measures a board’s ability to effectively govern and to work together to fulfill the organization’s mission and vision. Identification of strengths and weaknesses gives the board chair and the executive director the needed knowledge to improve and amend practices and strategies, engage the entire board, and create a healthy and energized board.

Tammy White: The CEO evaluation provides a snapshot of how the board feels I’m doing as a leader of the organization. That is extremely important to me, so I can meet the expectations of the board. The board assessment helps me understand how the board feels about our operations and how United Way is performing in the community against our mission.

Tim Daley: I think board evaluations represent that special time to look much deeper into the organization and those who are responsible for its success. At the executive director level, much professionalism is required and expected. Many objectives are resting with that position. In order for the board of directors to take a comprehensive look at their executive director, they need a professional tool to articulate their responses to questions asked about their executive director’s performance. Many boards have diverse members and would need a professional organization to filter information so that all members can understand the results.

Why is it important to have a formal review process of the CEO/executive director that involves the full board? 

Nancy Yocom: The performance of a nonprofit’s executive director is critical to the organization’s mission. The executive director directly influences the organization’s success and financial health. It is incumbent on the board of directors to set standards and objectively and fairly evaluate the performance of its executive director. Well-established performance goals are important, so the entire board and its executive director are in agreement. Because each director has a different experience, all members must participate in the ED’s performance evaluation.

Tammy White: It provided an opportunity for me to get first-hand feedback from the board in terms of my performance. It lets me see where the board thinks I’m performing well, but more important, where there are opportunities for improvement. It is essential to involve the board in this evaluation because it is my responsibility to meet the expectations of each and every board member.

Tim Daley: I think an executive director can feel a sense of respect that a formal, comprehensive process is being used by the board to evaluate their performance, no matter the results. It takes away any ambiguity to the responses when it’s a formal, structured process. Knowing that certain criteria were being examined helped to compartmentalize the answers for better understanding.

What benefit(s) did Tweed-Weber’s board assessments provide for you?

Nancy Yocom: Tweed-Weber provided an online survey for all board members to participate in a board self-assessment and the executive director’s evaluation. The surveys were a great way for all board members to provide confidential responses. The staff at Tweed-Weber assessed the board responses and provided valuable, meaningful, unbiased data. The data gave us a snapshot of the health of the board, and a tool to effectively assess the ED’s performance. Through the board assessment, we learned our board meetings needed to be more strategic, forward thinking, and that all board meetings should contain an educational component. Because of the assessment, I believe our directors’ board experience and the way our board provides leadership has improved. The ED’s performance evaluation provided specific goals for improvement and a benchmark for further evaluations.

Tammy White: It provided an opportunity for United Way as an organization to know where there are opportunities to strengthen board engagement and involvement, and what we need to do to make board members feel stronger in participation and oversight.

Tim Daley: Besides letting me know in very clear terms how I am performing, the evaluation was telling of board members. Certain answers indicated that some members are no longer part of a team, but rather isolated by their responses, even though individual names were not included. It’s a good tool to get everyone on the same page again.

What advice would you have for other nonprofits that have never conducted board assessments before?

Nancy Yocom: Conducting a board self-assessment can feel a bit daunting, but a board assessment gives all board members a voice. The assessment helps the board to improve its own work. It allows board members to better understand their roles and responsibilities, and how they can fulfill their obligations more effectively. The process can develop the board’s team building skills, provide structure for problem solving, and increase accountability within the organization.

Tammy White: There is absolute value in both the board self-assessment process and the performance evaluation. To be a strong nonprofit organization, you must take a step back and hear the voices of your board members, so the organization can be the best it can be. As President, it is my job to manage board needs and expectations, and it most certainly is my responsibility to do all that I can to excel in my position. Board assessments are invaluable in helping me do both. But the important thing is not just doing it and then walking away. You have to grow from lessons learned.

Tim Daley: I would advise executive directors to embrace a formal, independent evaluation as an opportunity to create a win-win situation. It gives the executive director a great tool to guide their professional development, and the board can express their thoughts with full knowledge that the independent evaluator will appropriately reduce the information in a professional manner.

End Q&A

In order to support all board members, whether new to the role or more seasoned in the responsibilities of the position, it is essential to provide a vehicle for gathering their feedback. They need to feel a sense of belonging to the organization and an ongoing contribution to its mission and success.

It’s always a pleasure to work with nonprofit leaders like those highlighted in this article that have a strong belief in proactively engaging board members. For them, it’s not just a best practice, but a routine part of how their nonprofit organizations operate. All of us at Tweed-Weber genuinely appreciate the opportunity to serve the nonprofit community.

We invite you to learn more about the nonprofit board self-assessment and the nonprofit CEO/executive director performance evaluation provided by Tweed-Weber. We can show you how a structured board engagement process can support the mission of your organization. You will Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Puritan Products: A Unique Blend of Excellence

The following is a recent edition of our e-newsletter: Know More. Do More. Our e-newsletter highlights the uses and benefits of business-to-business research and brings you timely examples of how companies are using research to achieve a competitive advantage. 

Puritan Products, Inc., located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, specializes in high purity chemicals and custom blended chemical formulations. Compliant in Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) and certified to ISO-9001:2008 quality management standards, it serves the global pharmaceutical, biotechnology, microelectronics, and laboratory markets. It’s an exciting time for Puritan Products as the company is currently celebrating 25 years.

Puritan Products’ ability to know what their customers want and to remain competitive in their market is extremely important throughout the entire company. Donna Long, Director of Marketing, explains, “Companies need to know where they stand with their customers. If they don’t, they are not being objective. You always have to ask yourself if you really know how you’re doing. Once you have a baseline for satisfaction, then you know how to make customers happy and how to enhance your capabilities. You can grow your company by utilizing customer data in terms of breadth of products and services, which ultimately impacts revenue.”

A fundamental instrument in Puritan Products’ effort to obtain the voice of the customer is their annual Customer Perception Survey. Puritan Products first contracted with Tweed-Weber in 2009 to help assist them with making a more formalized and repeatable customer feedback effort. Telephone interviews were conducted with customers the first year, followed by an online survey each year after to benchmark results. Erik Nowery, Product Manager, stated, “Surveying customers is an integral part of what we do, and it’s a source of pride throughout our organization. We take it very seriously and talk about the results at every level of the company. It’s one essential way that we measure ourselves. It all starts with our customers and how they feel. You really have nothing without them. They must be a constant priority in order to achieve success.”

Survey questions were developed in the areas of general market information, awareness of services/capabilities, overall perceptions of Puritan Products and its competitors, cGMP, compliance, quality, marketing, relationship management, and future trends and opportunities. These categories helped to obtain well-rounded feedback. According to Donna, “We try to cater to our strategic initiatives and use our customer survey as instructive feedback to measure ourselves, and then to develop new or modified initiatives. The survey has helped with so many growth and improvement efforts we have going on in the company. We’ve also created certain performance measures over the years that allow us to focus those efforts on what’s most important to our customers. We like to know, and need to know, how far we’ve come.”

At Tweed-Weber, we conduct customer surveys for our clients every day, and we see a whole range of satisfaction ratings. Puritan Products is consistently at the top of the heap with their ratings. Every year, customers comment on Puritan Products’ ability to be flexible partners, expedient with orders, and responsive in service in a way that is heads and tails above the competition. Erik explains, “Managing expectations and measuring what the customer is looking for to make their lives easier, instead of what we we’re looking for to make our lives easier, allows us to provide a better service experience. We really value the relationships we have with our customers. If someone has an issue, and we fix it fast, they remember that and trust us to do more.”

In response to their customer survey results, Puritan Products hired a tech service rep to better meet customer needs, and they changed how they measure their internal on-time shipping performance. Donna stated, “We like that we do so well, but we want to focus on areas for improvement. For instance, a direct result of our survey was that we developed an initiative to improve our on-time shipping. We’ve always measured our shipping timeliness as a part of our quality and performance metrics, but we learned that our customers were using different measures to define and rate our shipping performance. The minute we knew that, we put a system in place to match what they were using.”

Some of our clients tell us they are wary of hearing what their customers have to say because they are afraid of receiving bad news. Of course, we believe that’s even more of a reason to gather customer input. If there’s an issue lurking out there, you want to be able to address it and manage it to a positive conclusion. And if your fears are unfounded, it’s a shame to miss the opportunity to hear all the good news about your daily performance. Donna added, “Normally, you don’t get to hear about the really good stuff you’re doing. This survey process lets us hear it, and it feels great. When you hear good things about how you’re impacting customers, you tend to want to do even better.” As a perfect example, one customer of Puritan Products stated, “Puritan’s customer service personnel are the best of any I work with. They are all friendly and knowledgeable, and they follow-through with confirmations and special instructions flawlessly, without exception.”

At Tweed-Weber, we are always impressed by organizations that welcome customer feedback, and we believe Puritan Products is a model company for its enthusiastic and proactive efforts to do so. We enjoy quarterly, strategic discussions that can be referred to as “Greatness and Growlers,” where we talk about what’s working well, and what’s not. Those review meetings are always enlightening and help feed future survey initiatives. Tweed-Weber feels extremely fortunate to include Puritan Products as one of our valued clients, and more important, our friends.

We invite you to learn more about the strategic research services provided by Tweed-Weber, Inc. In a world of uncertainty, the ability to clearly focus your organization creates a distinct competitive advantage. No one can guarantee certainty, but Tweed-Weber can guarantee clarity. You will Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).