Are You Supporting Your Free Agents?
On every team there are stars and team contributors. The stars can’t do what they do without the contributions of the entire team. Even LeBron James can’t win an NBA game all by himself. But he certainly makes the rest of the team better!
In our world of executive leadership and fundraising, we operate as a team. BRYANT GROUP operates as a team just like the organizations that we serve, whether it be search, coaching, or talent development.
Your staff are, by and large, “free agents.” Yes, there are a few people who have contracts—restricted free agents, if you will—but the vast majority of the fundraising team, and even the leaders of those teams, are free agents that are open to consider outside offers.
What are you doing to protect your free agents?
The search industry is booming. BRYANT GROUP and many of our peers are in the midst of serving more clients than at any time in recent history. That means a lot of movement in the profession. Some of these are new positions and some are “unfrozen” positions—positions that were put on pause during the pandemic. For many of the positions we fill, there is a new opening created. As you consider building your most effective team, where does it make sense to bring in someone from the outside and where does it make sense to “protect” your superstar free agents?
One of the tactics employed at many best-of-class organizations are “stay interviews.” Stay bonuses or incentives are also occasionally used for significant projects, but stay interviews have become a foundational practice to help retain talent and to take a culture “temperature check.”
The purpose is to communicate to your team players, “You are important to us as an organization.” In my experience, these interviews are conducted by someone other than the person’s supervisor, but someone viewed as a representative of Leadership—someone whose voice is important. The purpose of the interview is two-fold: to convey that you are important to us and that your concerns matter to us. It is a prime opportunity, completely separate from the formal performance appraisal process, to ascertain if key team members are satisfied with their opportunities for growth, with how they are being led, whether they feel as valued as they actually are, and highlight specific opportunities to improve their job satisfaction. I view it as a step above a “good job” shoutout and not quite a bonus.
But, if it stops with the conversation, you have missed a HUGE opportunity! The culmination of these interviews with your top performers will give you a candid insight into the health of the culture of your organization.
Culture trumps everything! As President of the Oklahoma State University Foundation, I had employees tell me that they had received job offers that would have been more responsibility and more compensation–by as much as threefold!–and they had declined the offer because they believed they were where they were supposed to be doing what they were called to do. That is powerful. And not something I took lightly. That was my primary responsibility…to shepherd a culture that allowed the staff, stars and team contributors alike, to know that they are valued, cared for, treated fairly, and given every opportunity to have success, as they defined it.
I read once that everything you ever need to know to be successful was taught in kindergarten. When I was little, it was called the Golden Rule. Treat people like you would like to be treated. And the only way to know how people want to be treated is to ask them.
