Between stocks and flows
Recent work on shared goals, working in cycles, and demystifying strategy—plus lessons from my job hunt
Hi all. This newsletter remains mostly dormant, but I’m popping into your inbox to share a few recent pieces of work.
My original vision for this newsletter was a curated set of links, neatly packaged with commentary and analysis. I wanted to bridge from the conversational flow of social media to the heftier stock of ideas being generated through reports or think pieces. I struggled to execute that from the start, largely because I’m not a full-time “content creator”: when I’ve been swamped by work or a pandemic, I’ve let this side project slide.
But now, the conversational flow runs dry as Twitter collapses into sadness while would-be alternatives (Mastodon, Bluesky, now Threads) struggle to find traction. Yet the stock of durable ideas remains an important part of how we advance practice. I’ve had a few recent opportunities to add to that stock and want to be sure I can share those out with all of you.
So I beg your indulgence as I use this newsletter for that purpose. As a bonus, I’ll also share what I’ve learned from my (thus far, unsuccessful) job hunt.
Some recent work
🤝 Shared goals without compromise (Candid)
Clients and colleagues often ask if I have a preferred framework for planning and strategy. This piece was my effort to clarify why I always say no. Here’s how it starts:
Pop quiz: What’s the difference between a goal and an outcome? Between your mission statement and your north star? Between OKRs (objectives and key results) and KPIs (key performance indicators)?
If these terms make your head spin, don’t worry. They’re often used in frameworks designed to help teams plan and set strategy. But we can get tripped up by the technical jargon. We risk talking past one another if we’re using different frameworks, or even worse, excluding critical voices from the conversation.
So let’s set the jargon aside for a moment. Those terms are all different ways of asking: What are we trying to achieve? For that question, the words we use matter less than how we go about answering it.
Read the rest on Candid / Philanthropy News Digest.
🔁 How to build movements with cyclical patterns in mind (NPQ)
My frequent collaborators Sol Gattoni, Flor Guerzovich, and I have written on political “windows of opportunity” before. Last month, in NPQ (aka Nonprofit Quarterly), we took a new twist on the issue by looking at Overton windows, hype cycles, and organizational constraints. We start with a story from early in my career:
Back in the mid-2000s, before the likes of George Santos or Donald Trump normalized daily political scandals, there was another name that had become synonymous with Washington corruption: Jack Abramoff. He was at the center of a scandal involving bribery, kickbacks, money laundering, and expensive gifts for members of Congress, including golfing trips to Scotland.
Abramoff ended up pleading guilty to a range of charges. So did Representative Bob Ney (R) of Ohio and a handful of congressional aides. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) of Texas also resigned and was convicted of money laundering.
At the time, Dave worked for an organization focused on government accountability and reform. They often struggled to get public attention on Congressional corruption. The Abramoff scandal suddenly changed that: the investigations brought details of dirty influence peddling to the front page. If your mission was to curb corruption, it was a prime moment to do something bold.
Dave’s organization held a meeting.
(Special thanks to NPQ’s Steve Dubb, whose editing and feedback substantially improved this piece.)
🎙️ Demystifying strategic planning (Remote Culture Club)
I spoke with the always insightful Alix Dunn on her Remote Culture Club podcast about doing strategy, especially in remote/hybrid organizations. Here’s the lead-in:
A little bit of my mission here is to demystify these processes—because I think they’ve been intentionally mystified, by people like myself who want to sell an organization on how complex this is. I point the finger at the bigger firms, whose business is to make it seem like this is a hard thing to do.
And I'm not saying process expertise isn't important and having been through the processes before and understanding what the pitfalls might be—those are all critical. But everyone is doing this in some way or another. On a daily basis, we can't, as humans, get dressed in the morning or feed ourselves or get across the street if we're not thinking about: what we're trying to achieve, where we are now, and the steps we're gonna get through to get there.
Find the full episode (and listen to her other interviews) here.
When I first listened to this, I was struck by several nuggets of wisdom that I’d forgotten about in the weeks since we recorded it. Overall, this was a fun opportunity to draw together what I’ve learned in recent years. I’d be eager to do it again: if you host a podcast and want to chat strategy, social change, nonprofits, philanthropy, facilitation, or related topics, drop me a line. 🤙
🎁 More
The links above are the most recent, but you can also find a few evergreen pieces collected on my website. Personally, I’ve been looking back at a framework I crafted on workplace culture in a piece from last year: “How do workplaces become toxic? And can we make them more nurturing?”
Let me know what you think of the pieces above.
Bonus: Lessons from my job hunt
A few weeks ago, our feisty five-year-old objected to some household rules. She said it was unfair that only grownups get to make the rules. She’s learned about bodily autonomy and understands it to mean, “It’s my body so I get to decide when I jump on the couch / have more candy / push the baby over / etc.” I explained that keeping everyone safe and healthy is part of our job as parents.
She replied: “You don’t have a job! You just help people have conversations!” Which felt like a red herring but is actually pretty accurate.
It’s been almost a year since I decided to leave consulting and find a full-time job again. When I mentioned it in this newsletter, many of you reached out with suggestions and offers of support—I’m deeply grateful for that. So it’s mostly my own fault that, for better or worse, I’m still a consultant.
On the one hand, this isn’t a terrible thing. After eight years consulting, I’ve carved out a great niche. I love my clients (even the tough ones! you know who you are…). And getting back to in-person facilitation this year has breathed new life into my soul. But I’m still feeling a sense of “plateauing” career-wise.
My job hunt problem partly stems from being too selective. Because consulting is going well, there’s less need to find a full-time job. I talk myself out of many potential roles—not quite the right field, not the right level, etc. I end up only applying to one or two roles a month.
I’ve also struggled to get into “job interviewing” mode. Just like there’s a particular skill to taking a standardized test, which only loosely correlates to academic ability, there’s a particular skill to job interviews. My last real job hunt was a decade ago, so if I ever had that skill, it seems I lost it.
This became clear in my second interview with a recruiter for a foundation strategy role. After describing my team’s work on a past project, she said: “You’re using the word ‘we’ a lot. I’d like to know which specific parts of the project you did.” It was great feedback from her, and I shifted gears to clarify. But that involved a very individualized way of talking about work that is, at its core, highly collaborative.
It’s not that I don’t know how to pitch. Being a consultant means always being in “business development” mode. But in comparing notes with a fellow consultant who’s also been applying to jobs, we realized job interviews involve a different set of expectations than consulting project interviews. Job interviews are more retrospective and individual (what have you done), while consulting projects are developed through more forward-looking and collaborative conversations (what might we do together). It’s a different game.
My lack of skill at that game has meant only five of the applications I’ve submitted have resulted in multiple interview rounds. None have resulted in offers. So my job hunt continues, but at a slow simmer. I’m casting a wider net, while also remaining patient. I’m making the case for the value consultants bring to in-house roles. I’ve re-designed my website.
Oh, and I have two new roles to keep me occupied between consulting projects: I joined the board of Feedback Labs, an organization I’ve consulted for in the past and long admired; and this fall, I’ll be co-teaching a graduate course (along with my friend Anna Levy) on international organizations at NYU Wagner, where I got my MPA. Maybe I’ll even find some downtime to come back to my white whale of a book project.
Because I know others may be looking for jobs, here are a few things I’ve learned:
Figure out what you want and focus your search on that, but don’t limit yourself to it. Push (a bit) beyond it.
Streamline the “search” part. I have a folder of bookmarks to the job pages of 70+ organizations and field-specific job boards. Every two weeks, I right-click and choose “open all”. I wait two minutes while they open, then I go through every tab, closing each as I go. The whole process takes 10-15 minutes.
BUT: Most of my best opportunities have been shared by people I know, either sent to me directly or via LinkedIn posts. So don’t over-invest in scouring job boards.
Talk to outside recruiters. I’m at a point in my career where many of the roles I apply for have recruiters, and I occasionally hear from random recruiters, but I’m not expecting a head-hunter to just come and find me. If you’re in a similar spot, try to get to know some of them.
The whole “personal branding” stuff is bullsh*t. But also, it kind of matters, so don’t ignore it.
If it’s worth your time to apply for a job, then it’s worth your time to:
Customize your CV. Start with a “master CV” with every possible bullet point you might include, then do a custom cut down to two pages for each submission.
Customize your cover letter. I keep a folder with all my cover letters, so I can chop and re-use pieces.
Network your way in. Find a former classmate, a second-degree connection, anyone who can give you some inside insight.
Prepare for interviews by making a list of professional stories relevant to the role. I’ve found the “STAR” framework useful: situation, task, action, result.
Fun but unnecessary: I also prepped for some interviews by dropping the job description into ChatGPT and asking it for a list of ten questions a hiring manager for that role would ask. The results were obvious—I could’ve come up with the same list—but it was quicker and I could better practice responding to the questions as external prompts.
Always ask for feedback after a rejection. If you spent time on an interview, I think a hiring manager at least owes you a few sentences of real feedback.
Have any advice to share? Leave a comment below. (Or tweet it, but lord knows who will see it these days.)
Also, if you’re job hunting, there’s a good chance that your professional world connects in some way to mine (if not, then how did you end up reading this newsletter??) so find me on LinkedIn and don’t hesitate to ping me about introductions, advice, or any other way I can be helpful.
If you made it this far, you must be a serious newsletter reader! You may want to check out my list of recommended Substacks from people who write more often than me.
Hi David- great to get some insight into what your working and thinking on. And also great to hear an update on your job search. I was wondering about that. I haven't been actively (or passively) looking, but I'm interested in learning from others in case I decide to go in that direction. I appreciate your sharing. A couple questions:
* how important do you think linked in is? recruiters and HR folks look at it. Have you done stuff on linked in to oriented it better towards a job search?
* have you gotten useful feedback when you've asked for it? In my limited experience, I haven't gotten useful (or, I think candid) feedback even thought I want it and don't mind if it's rough.
* Is any of the application/interview process fun or interesting? What is surprising?