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On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I had a chance to share a dinner with an amazingly productive and visionary friend who works in the social change field. In the midst of dinner she asked me a very interesting question,

“When your goal is very long-term, how do you decide what to do today? What is your process for making choices about what gets done first?”

Really, really interesting question that is at the heart of my work, and at the heart of all self-directed knowledge work. With knowledge work, we often aren’t told what to do, or even what our outcomes should be. We have to start with a long-term vision and walk back to tangible tasks to do and real systems to build.

In the course of our conversation some cool things came out.

First, I tend to prefer tasks that get others unstuck. If people can’t get some of their work done because of a bug or bad process, I want to address that as soon as I can. A key thing about knowledge work–so much of what gets done gets done by other people. We’re almost always in teams, and unsticking teammates is crucial to team success.

Another thing about getting other people unstuck is it shows you are listening. Addressing a piece of work that others have raised shows you respect the needs and input of others. That will bank good will for when you need it in the future.

Second, I like to do things that overtly show movement in the right direction. People love incremental improvement they can see. It’s much better to take many small steps toward a goal, and let people see them happen, than to take a giant leap that happens behind closed doors. Salesforce.com has done an exceptional job at this over the years. There is a faith among the customer base that all problems will be eventually resolved, because they’ve seen progress every 3 months for years now, even if there isn’t faith they will be all addressed tomorrow.

Third, do things that don’t create a big support tail for you. When you work with a community of users or customers, their requests can easily overwhelm you. Don’t jump to do work that creates an untenable support load. Analyze all work you’re considering with this lens. It’s not always clear if you’re setting yourself up for a big tail, so be careful. Doing things without a tail will allow you to move on to the next task with all you’ve got.

Fourth, think about how you would undo or improve the work you just accomplished. If you are implementing a process that thousands of people will interact with, you want to get it right the first time because changing that in the future may involve re-training all those people. But if you’re designing how a request from that system is handled behind the scenes, it might not affect many users to swap out a new way to handle that request. If you’re abstracted from the end users, with technology or personal processes, things will be easier to change. And if things are easy to change in the future, you can move more quickly now, and get more done.

Finally, don’t make any decisions today that you can‘t put off to tomorrow. This may sound like procrastination, but it’s not. You will usually have more information tomorrow than you do today, so if you can make progress without locking yourself into something, you’re better off.

I hope this helps you think about the knowledge work you’re doing every day. We all make this kind of analysis innumerable times subconsciously in our work. It was great to have my friend raise the question and get me thinking about it.

I was blown away when I read through this internal slide deck from Netflix. This is the blueprint for a creative culture that values employee effectiveness, freedom, and results. It’s a plan for growth that can avoid the institutionalization and ossification that comes with risk-aversion. As I read this, I realized this is as close a description of the culture in which I want to work as I’ve ever seen. I am exceedingly impressed with Netflix for doing this kind of thinking and staying true to it. Bravo.

It is with a mix of sadness and excitement that I announce my departure from ONE/Northwest to join the Salesforce Foundation. I’ve had a great 4 years building out the CRM consulting program, and the time was right for me to take a very exciting opportunity. I get to work at the source of the force behind the growth of the Salesforce platform in the nonprofit sector.

It’s difficult for me to leave ONE\Northwest. It is hands-down the best environment in which I’ve worked. It’s an incredibly talented team that thrives on respect and shared purpose. It was a tough decision to leave such a great team, and such great friends.

I started at ONE/Northwest in 2005 with the goal of starting a CRM consulting program. The team is now 5 staff, cranking on 10 simultaneous projects. We have a very sophisticated set of consulting practices, some pretty slick code, and a track record of happy customers. I’m very pleased with where we’ve gotten to in the last 4 years. What a ride it’s been!

While I have been the most visible face of the ONE/Northwest CRM team, each member of the team is a strong performer in his/her own right. Most of our best code and practices were suggested and developed by my colleagues, not by me, and I thank them for the great years working together. I’ve learned a lot from these folks, and I’ll miss working with them every day. It has been a real joy.

I’m very excited to join the team at the Salesforce Foundation I’ve come to know over the last 4 years. If you’ve worked with them you know they are great people. I look forward to being able to work toward the mission of getting Salesforce into the hands of nonprofits around the world. That’s a reach I can’t really fathom quite yet.

I am the first overtly technical hire at the Foundation, so I’m sure they’ve got lots for me to do. There are a number of areas where technical expertise will come in handy–the Nonprofit Starter Pack, working with the NPSF community, working with partners who are looking to create nonprofit solutions, partnering with large NGOs who are pushing the platform to new places, and the list goes on. I can’t wait to get started!

To those of you who know me in person or on the web, I don’t suspect you’ll notice too much different. I’m staying in Seattle and I’ll be remaining active in all the fora I currently frequent. I look forward to seeing you there in my new role!

Thanks to everyone at ONE/Northwest who helped make the last 4 years a great experience, and to the folks at the Foundation who have given me this new opportunity! I’ll keep you all posted along the way.

Starkly illustrated by comparing the top 10 novels chosen by editors and those chosen through online poll:

Source: Random House

Salmon Bay school in Seattle.

Have you ever put yourself outside your comfort zone only to have that zone of comfort expand underneath you?

Have you ever paid someone to make you do things that are very difficult, that you would never make yourself do, and come back the next day for another 10 hours of it?

Have you ever learned more about real leadership in 4 days than you thought possible?

Have you ever seen your image of yourself crystallize, and finally understand the real purpose of the work you’ve been doing for years?

If so, you may have just completed Rockwood’s Art of Leadership program, like I just did.

I’m still churning over the 30 some hours of intense training I just went through with amazing peers and truly masterful teachers. But what I’ve been able to process makes me think I’ll never really look at my role in the world the same way I did.

Thanks to Gideon who paid my way, Rockwood who made it all possible, 20 some fellow travelers who went along for the ride, and Roberto Vargas and Suzanne Hawkes–two amazing leaders and role models who pushed ad pulled us all for those 4 days!

I came to Art of Leadership by way of ONE/Northwest, and I was thinking of it as a work activity. I was looking forward to taking some time to think about my leadership role within and without my org.

But during a session last night I was struck that when we talked about what was our purpose on this earth–what did we want to be remembered for–my kids leapt to mind. I see them as my reason and my legacy.

I was a bit surprised–not that my kids are important to me, but that the work that I do didn’t jump to the fore.

I awoke this morning and it came to me. My purpose is to help people find their power.

I think a big part of raising kids is about acheiving this goal:

When my kids reach adulthood, I want them to be strong, free-thinking, caring people.

I want to help them find their power. I want them to grow into what they can be.

And this resonates with my work as well. So much of what I do is about trying to share my knowledge so that others may use that in finding their own power. A nonprofit staffer can have massive impact on the world, and that impact can be multiplied if I can show them what I know about strategies, databases and the web.

It’s more about teaching than about technology. See the power you have? Now what are you going to do with it?

This week I’m at Rockwood’s 4 day leadership training, the Art of Leadership. So far it’s excellent. When do you get a chance to think about the purpose of your time on Earth? When do you really get to think about what specific gifts you bring to the social change movement?

It’s nice to take some time out to think about leadership and how I can help people have a say in decisions that affect their lives.

A friend of mine died the other day, far, far too soon. Ryan Neff was a good man. Kind, gentle, steadfast, smart, and funny. Everyone who met him would agree–he was that kind of guy.

We met in college playing ultimate Frisbee. We both moved to Chicago in the early nineties and were close friends there. We supported each other in the big, unknown city. Then, in 1994, we both moved out to Seattle with our respective partners.

For two years, we spent tons of time together, two couples who struck out to the west coast and were taking it all in. We had many good times together.

In 1996 I ended my relationship with my then partner. That caused Ryan and I to go our separate ways, as can happen with friends in breakups. But he has been in my thoughts ever since, especially when he started battling cancer a number of years ago.

When his cancer came, went, and then returned with a vengeance, Ryan’s response was one I will never forget. He said, “It can’t always happen to someone else.”

May I have a mere fraction of the courage, grace, and humility that Ryan showed us all. Godspeed to you Toast, we all miss you.

Matthew just notified me that my last month and a half of articles didn’t make it to my feed. Whoops. I seem to have fixed the problem. Feel free to check out what I wrote in July and August!