Marc Pitman: Welcome to the Concord Leaders Podcast. I’m Marc Pitman, the CEO of the Concord Leadership Group, where we’re helping leaders keep focus and move with purpose through these trying times. Today, our guests are Mel and Pearl Shaw. They’re the co-founders of Saad & Shaw, one of the preeminent fundraising consulting firms for historically Black colleges and universities and other nonprofits around the country, and probably around the world. Thank you both for being here.

Mel Shaw: Well, thank you, Marc. We love being here.

Pearl Shaw: And glad to be with you.

Marc Pitman: I had such a good time — at the time of this recording, we had just finished last week a conversation about fundraising, and thoroughly enjoyed your perspective and the way that you do work together so closely. It’s really inspiring to watch. Did you come by that choice naturally?

Mel Shaw: Yeah, Marc, I really had other agendas when I first met Pearl. And then it kind of evolved into, maybe this might be a good business relationship as well. So I came out a winner on both ends, if you understand what I’m saying.

Marc Pitman: I do, I do. Pearl, what was it like for you? Did you have both agendas too, or?

Pearl Shaw: I’ll just clean that up a little bit — I didn’t say that we are a husband and wife team. [Laughing] And we each had our own businesses, and then we merged them. So I think that we have complementary styles, and we just have a natural ability to click, but we have different content areas and different strengths, which I think really makes for good working together.

Mel Shaw: I’m sticking with my story, Marc. [Laughing]

Marc Pitman: Awesome. I know you were both leaders in your own efforts before 2004, when you co-founded Saad & Shaw, and then you’ve been leading and leaders in the industry since then. What about leadership do you find the most enjoyable?

Mel Shaw: Well, I’m going to start with a very bold statement — what I enjoy about leadership is using people. And now I want to clean that up, Marc — the key part for me is the utilization of people who are skillful, who focus in the same direction that you are, who have the talent and resources to help you perpetuate your goals and vision. And that’s why I use the word “use people,” but it’s in a good way. And the issue would be taking advantage of the talent around you, or developing the untapped talent that you’re able to develop and move forward. So that’s the enjoyment that I have in playing a leadership role.

Pearl Shaw: I’d say I describe my leadership style as facilitative. I really see my role as bringing people together to help them do their best. So it’s more of — I guess the quote we’ve heard in past years is “lead from behind,” but I think that’s a very strong position to be in — that of encouraging others, providing them with the tools, removing obstacles, and helping people understand what we’re trying to achieve and how we can work together to achieve that.

Marc Pitman: Wow, yeah, and that’s really interesting, because when you say leading from behind, and “what are we trying to achieve,” there seems to be more patience built into the process. I know a lot of leaders who are so set on what they already know they’re trying to achieve that they forget to build consensus.

Pearl Shaw: Right, and that’s the good part about being in that role — if you can get buy-in, and people buy into your program and take ownership of it, then you feel like you’ve done your job. And I think that whole process of building consensus is actually the hardest part of leadership. It’s the hardest part of anything. We’re all full of good ideas about how to go from A to B, but how do we work together? So yes, you can use an authoritative style — “Okay, we’ve got to get this done” — but you might leave the best thinking on the table, because you’re using an authoritarian, “let’s get this done, this is the deadline, you do this, it’s your job, shut up and like it” approach. That only goes so far. So if you want to build a culture where people have ownership, and they’re actually applying their creativity and bringing their strongest skills to the job, you need to take the time to build consensus, sustain it, and allow for different, competing voices to be heard. So maybe your first thought isn’t going to be what actually happens, but people are actually moving where they need to go.

Marc Pitman: Wow, there’s so much there to unpack, and that sounds like that was built on experience. So I love to ask guests: was there a time when they tried to do something and it didn’t work out, or failed? Have you experienced that with building consensus, or did you have a different example you wanted to share?

Mel Shaw: Oh, we could go on and on, Marc, about things we put on the table that did not work out — I think we experience that every day, all day. But hopefully, at the end, the burden does not always rest on you as the leader — it’s a combination of things. And hopefully, at the end of the day, those who were involved would say, “We all had a hand in either making it work or moving forward, or we just did not have the resources or the will or the power to move forward.” So my worry is about one person carrying a burden, whether you win or lose — it’s a shared experience. And so when you do fail, it’s not so much a burden by yourself. I know I’ve gone around the world on that, but again, it’s a shared proposition, both winning or losing.

Pearl Shaw: Now, I want to just piggyback on what Melvin said with that. When we are working and prepping for a meeting, we always have — he drills it into us — what’s Plan A? What’s Plan B? Let’s have a Plan C. So having a plan isn’t enough — it’s what are the backup plans, and the backup to the backup, so that if you find yourself facing obstacles, which is life, we’re kind of used to it, then you have something else to put on the table, another way to get to a similar, or perhaps even more valuable, place. I know I feel that sense of, “Oh gosh, this didn’t work,” when we’re trying to move a team together, and we thought we had consensus — I thought people were excited about it, we met with everyone individually, we’ve been meeting as a group, but nothing’s happening. And I’m scratching my head, “What is going on?” But that’s the time, my experience has shown, you have to look and see what else is going on. Because sometimes there’s verbal agreement at the very top, from the quote-unquote powers that be, but they actually don’t want it to happen. There are actually conflicting agendas in place, but there’s a need to keep a process going which really isn’t going to go anywhere. So it’s just a way of saying it’s not always you, it’s not always your team — it could be higher-ups, it could be the environment, it could be things like, “Oh yeah, we really want this to go, but it can’t go for three months, but in three months it’s going to go big.” There’s just so much you don’t know. So think about what else is going on that you don’t know about.

Mel Shaw: And Marc, just to piggyback on what we’ve tried to do — first of all, to know the players, both professionally and personally, so that when we do put an idea on the table, we pretty much know what will work for them individually and what will work for them collectively. And we try to have in the back of our mind what would be a win-win for all parties concerned as we move forward. And again, we try to have a Plan B and a Plan C based on the personalities we know, their track record, the kinds of things we know will rub them the wrong way. And in most cases, we come out pretty good using that approach.

Marc Pitman: That’s a really great sequential step. And Pearl, your mention of keeping a process going just to keep it going, and Mel, your saying that not all the success has to fall on one person, reminds me — it’s not just the senior-level leaders, even though we interview senior-level leaders here, it’s also the next tier of leadership. I’m thinking particularly of fundraisers — they’re often isolated in nonprofits, the ones burdened with carrying the entire load of fundraising for the organization. And if it fails, it’s not shared ownership — it’s that one person’s, or that one department’s, problem.

Mel Shaw: Well, in our business, as it relates to nonprofits, we feel that any project, in most cases, should be volunteer-led versus staff-driven. And we spend a lot of our time trying to figure out what we can do to motivate that nonprofit leader, give them the maximum exposure, and let them get all the credit. And if you’re not in a position where you have to be part of the spotlight, you’re in the wrong business. It’s one of those situations known for its abundance of disappointment and few successes. And we try, in our planning process and our management process, to assure that when that volunteer leader comes on board, we can guarantee that in most cases, if you follow the game plan — which requires buy-in by all — you’ll come out on top.

Pearl Shaw: Yeah, I think in that whole situation where the fundraiser has to bear all the burden, you can mark it up from the very beginning that even if you meet your fundraising goal, you will have failed — because if you meet your fundraising goal by just depending on a couple of staff people, you did not raise the money you could have. No matter how good a fundraising professional is, that’s their job — to raise money — and peer-to-peer fundraising that’s supported by staff is the most effective. So you can tell from the beginning whether or not you have a go or no-go, just by how you define who’s quote-unquote “responsible.”

Marc Pitman: That is gold, wow. That’s really good, and I love your reminder about volunteer-led versus staff-driven, because when I first got into fundraising, back 25 years ago, Dave Dunlop was a speaker at a conference I went to, and over subsequent years — I got to be his chauffeur and do some other stuff — he made me promise multiple times that whatever I did in fundraising, to make sure it was always accessible to volunteers, because they were going to be with the organizations longer. He was really concerned, in the ’90s, about the drive to keep it staff-driven, increasingly staff-driven. He didn’t think that was good for the organizations doing fundraising that way.

Mel Shaw: Well, you’re absolutely right, Marc. We have found that you can certainly get a windfall, or whatever the case might be, out of the blue, but you cannot sustain the organization with those kinds of drop-in gifts. But if you can build a culture, especially one driven by your volunteers, it will grow and sustain over a long period of time.

Marc Pitman: Well, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I know from experience I could keep talking for a lot longer with you, but I want to honor your time and ask you — if you’re just thinking about the conversation we’ve had so far today, what would be something, a tip, that you’d give a leader, something they should do today? I’m thinking something to help somebody else see the need for consensus, but it could be anything. You work with a lot of leaders on a regular basis — what’s one thing you’d recommend they consider doing before they put their head down to rest today?

Mel Shaw: My suggestion would be: take time to know your players, whether they’re volunteers or staff — know them individually, know them collectively when they’re all together. If you don’t have a proper understanding and knowledge of who they are, it’s very hard to manage the people around you.

Pearl Shaw: And I would ask: what obstacle can I help you remove, so that you can be even more successful in your job?

Marc Pitman: Wow, I’m writing that down — “What obstacle can I help you remove so you can be even more successful in your job?” That is great.

Mel Shaw: And go ahead, just to go a little further — to piggyback on what Pearl said — it’s your job as the lead person on the team to make sure you’ve provided all the resources necessary for someone to succeed and be successful. And then define what success means to that individual, or to the people you’re leading, because that can get crazy at times too. So stop and ask them, “What does success mean for you, as it relates to what we’re doing?” Because it’s usually not what you think it is, and it’s often stuff that’s easier to provide than you might expect.

Pearl Shaw: Right, because everybody doesn’t immediately say, “Well, I just need an extra paycheck,” or “I want an increase in my share” — that’s not always the case.

Marc Pitman: No, that’s so true. Well, thank you both so much. I know people are going to want to learn more about you, and I know you’ve written a number of books that are helping people all over. Where can they find more information about Saad & Shaw?

Mel Shaw: Best place to find us is online at www.saadandshaw.com. Let me spell that for you — S-A-A-D-A-N-D-S-H-A-W dot com.

Marc Pitman: That is awesome, I’ve got a big smile — my face is hurting so much, that is really, really cool. Well, so you heard it here — Saad & Shaw, S-A-A-D-A-N-D-S-H-A-W dot com. And I know people are going to want to listen to this episode again, because there’s so much you packed into this short time together. So you can find this on your favorite podcatcher or podcast app under Concord Leaders, or you can go to concordleadershipgroup.com/podcasts, with an S. And until next time, remember that healthy organizations start with healthy leaders.