An employee at a non-profit organization complains about the lack of responsiveness from his executive director despite his constant follow-ups via email, phone calls, or even messaging.

When this employee reached the peak of frustration and dissatisfaction, he decided to change the approach in managing matters, focusing on compensating for weekly meetings that added more tasks to the task list without expecting to complete them all, and restructuring them to be task-oriented meetings that aim to accomplish required tasks immediately.

Completing Tasks Immediately:

Under the new strategy, the employee emails his executive director the day before their meeting, including all priority tasks, along with a summary for each. During the meetings, which usually last 90 minutes, both parties discuss the task list sent earlier and work to complete as many as possible.

During the meetings, the employee sits in front of his director, and both look at their own computers to review the task list that needs to be completed. The employee does not just watch and listen; he also takes important notes and creates a new list of follow-up items.

If there is a suggestion that requires review, the employee quietly sits in front of his executive director while the review is conducted, taking notes that he refers to when reading the suggestion at hand, and later makes the necessary adjustments based on the initial review conducted by his executive director.

The Final Result:

By the end of the meeting, the employee and his team would have completed all the tasks included in the list, in addition to documenting a new list that contains many tasks.

As a result of this new strategy, the manager no longer feels guilty about the lack of success of his non-profit organization, and the employee no longer feels frustrated when dealing with his executive director, not to mention his satisfaction upon seeing the progress made by the organization, where the main tasks of the campaign are carried out in a predictable and precise manner. Even if that was not enough, the organization witnessed an increase in the number of donors and volunteers who contributed to increasing the momentum.

Therefore, if your executive director is unable to complete the work related to both of you, perhaps you should change the nature of your regular meetings with him to achieve better results.

Author: Dwight Whitney

Website:GuideStar