November 18, 2024 • 10 mins
What if nonprofits could break free from traditional constraints to achieve greater impact through visionary leadership and a strong performance-driven culture?
In this episode, Nicole Lawson, CEO and President of Orchards Children's Services, shares her journey of leading an organization that serves over 8,500 children with the support of a dedicated 350-member team.
With a background in behavioral healthcare, Nicole brings a unique perspective to nonprofit leadership - challenging outdated norms and redefining what success looks like in this sector.
Nicole dives into the importance of fostering a resilient organizational culture, emphasizing the connection between internal dynamics, external perceptions, and mission fulfillment.
She candidly discusses the need for competitive wages in nonprofits and highlights how balancing people, processes, and profit can sustain long-term success.
Her innovative strategies show how reinvesting in staff and building a culture of positivity and accountability can drive meaningful change.
Tune in to learn how Nicole's visionary approach is reshaping the nonprofit narrative and inspiring leaders across sectors to rethink what’s possible.
We'd love your feedback on how we can improve - send us a Text!!
Seeking to align your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges. Not ready? Join our PL3 Community for free insights & connections.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Gladhart (00:00):
Welcome to the Leadership Lever Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Gladhart,CMO at the Culture Think Tank.
At the Culture Think Tank, weempower leaders with metrics
that strengthen culture, driveperformance and return.
We're here today to learn aboutthe actions leaders have taken
to address organizational change.
(00:21):
Address organizational change.
Our guest today is NicoleLawson, CEO and President of
Orchards Children's Services.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to join us.
Nicole Lawson (00:32):
Thanks, Will, I'm really glad to be here today.
William Gladhart (00:35):
I'm glad to have you as well.
So let's start by having youshare with our audience a bit
about yourself, your backgroundand, of course, your
organization.
Nicole Lawson (00:43):
I'd love to, thank you so much.
As you said, my name is NicoleLawson and I've been with
Orchards for a little over ayear and, in terms of education,
I have a master's degree incounseling psychology.
I'm a licensed professionalcounselor here in the state of
Michigan and I have a PhD inbusiness administration.
I've spent 20-plus last yearsof my career in the behavioral
(01:03):
healthcare care space, workingin quasi-governmental,
for-profit and non-profitsettings, and personally, I've
been married to my wonderfulhusband for 23 years and we have
two smart, kind and supertalented daughters aged 22 and
18.
As I said, I've been in my rolewith Orchards just over a year
now, and we're a child welfareorganization that I like to say
was started by a group ofvisionary women, and we're a
child welfare organization thatI like to say was started by a
group of visionary women who sawa gap in services to children
(01:27):
in their community over 60 yearsago and they pulled together to
fill that gap.
Fast forward to where we aretoday, where we have a dedicated
staff of about 350 people thatserve over 8,500 children across
the entire state.
We have a family preservationarm that works really hard to
keep families together and,unfortunately, if kids can't be
(01:49):
safely kept in their family home.
We do have a foster care andadoption business line as well
to help kids who are movingthrough that part of the child
welfare system, and we also haveoutpatient mental health
counseling to address the oftentraumatic experiences that both
parents and youth who areinvolved in the child welfare
system may experience.
William Gladhart (02:10):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Thank you for the fantasticwork that you do.
That is impacting not onlyfamilies, kids, but also, you
know, you have a caring andcompassionate staff that is
facilitating those interactionsand engagements.
Would you share why you believea healthy culture is critical?
Nicole Lawson (02:27):
Absolutely.
I think your culture is adirect reflection of how
everybody in the organizationfeels about the work you do.
When they're reflecting that,they reflect that out back to
the rest of the world about whatthose feelings are and I just
think there's a directcorrelation to this idea of them
carrying your organizationalculture out to the rest of the
(02:48):
world and the success of yourbusiness.
So, regardless of what kind ofbusiness you're in, if you have
a poor culture, it's going topoorly impact your business and
the rest of the world'sperception of your business and
then, conversely, if you have areally good culture, it's going
to have a positive impact.
William Gladhart (03:04):
I love that response.
So let's begin with questionone.
It's been our experience thatleaders tend to struggle in
three key areas people, processor profits.
In your new role as CEO, couldyou identify which one of these
areas presented a culturalchallenge within your
organization?
Nicole Lawson (03:20):
Sure, I mean, I think all three are always on my
radar and something we striveto keep in balance, but picking
one, I pick profits, and I justthink there's this really weird
for lack of a better termsignificant case of mistaken
identity in the world thatnonprofit organizations should
somehow function differentlythan other businesses.
(03:41):
And the most obvious example Ican give is a demonstration of
market rate wages.
And so if I look at a marketrate study of people with the
same, similar education andexperience as my workforce in a
for profit or governmentalsetting, those market wages are
significantly higher than in thenonprofit arena.
And there's this sense thatnonprofits shouldn't strive for
(04:05):
significant or marketablemargins and that our staff
should somehow earn less for thegreater good or in the name of
the mission and I'm on a missionto change that a little bit I
like to say that nonprofit is atax status and that allows us to
reinvest our profitablebusiness ventures back into our
mission and into our staff.
But I don't think we should beasked to, or certainly not
(04:28):
expected to, sacrifice or acceptanything less just because we
work in a nonprofit space.
William Gladhart (04:33):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
That's definitely something wedon't hear often as we talk with
people in the more privatesector business space, but I
love that you know.
Obviously the profit pieceimpacts your ability to bring on
talent, to find the rightpeople to streamline your
processes and serve not onlyyour clients and the greater
(04:56):
public as well.
I really appreciate youidentifying that challenge.
You know so as you workedthrough some of that.
Changes around the profits,people, performance, et cetera.
What did that look like and howhas that negatively impacted
your organization?
Nicole Lawson (05:11):
In terms of what it looked like when I first
started my role.
One of the things I noticed waswe had this warm and welcoming,
relational, just positiveculture, and so it was critical
to me that I maintained the keyaspects of that while
identifying where we had room togrow.
And so I sent out an all-staffsurvey and I asked people what
they were happy with, where wecould improve, and the responses
(05:31):
were overwhelming related tocomp and benefits.
So, to your point, it impactsour talent pool, which then
impacts the service we're ableto deliver.
The report we got was thatpeople felt that their salary
reflected that they wereundervalued and under-recognized
, not only by the organizationbut by the wider healthcare
service industry as well.
Certainly, kind of putting thatout there and seeing that
(05:55):
impacts morale.
So you can have this reallywarm and relational culture, but
when people are feelingundervalued because of their
comp and benefits, it has animpact, and I also think it's
really important to know that Ipublished those survey results
to all my staff and my board.
I thought being transparent wasreally critical to my ability
to build trust and I wanted tocreate a sense of accountability
(06:18):
for myself as well as acrossthe larger culture.
William Gladhart (06:22):
Yeah, I mean I think you've shared.
The impact of the next question, of course, is I love that
you've been transparent but alsoshared that information back,
because that's what we that's.
A hangup that we find with manyleaders is they get all this
great information and then itdoesn't go anywhere.
It only goes to the leaders,directors board, et cetera, and
(06:43):
no one else knows what's goingon.
It's not that people are tiredof pressing the button.
They're tired of pressing thebutton and then not hearing back
from their leaders.
So I highly commend you forbeing transparent and sharing
that.
You know you kind of, as Ialluded to in this next question
, you know what was the onething you identified that helped
impact your culture positively?
Obviously, sharing that openline of communication.
But what was something elsethat you did?
Nicole Lawson (07:05):
So I mean to your point.
I think that when you ask aquestion you need to be prepared
to respond, and I have a strongbelief in data decision,
data-driven decision-making, andI think if people can
understand the why or they atleast have a healthy basic
grounded understanding then theycan accept things.
(07:29):
My team went out, they gotmarket rate surveys from across
the state.
They worked really hard toconduct an analysis for us to
see where we were in line andout of line in terms of comp and
benefits with the nonprofitmarket here in Michigan, and so,
based on action and we adjustedsalaries up where they were
appropriately, I'm very proud tobe able to say today that every
job classification in ourorganization is paid at or above
(07:49):
market rate, and we also madesome benefit adjustments and
increased some of our offeringsso that we were more competitive
in the market as well.
One example I can give is wenow have an employer-paid
short-term disability plan.
This is no longer elective andit's no longer on our employees
to cover the cost of that, andso I think the effort to listen,
combined with that transparentprocess and then having a very
(08:13):
targeted response, went a longway to reinforce the positive
aspects of our culture.
William Gladhart (08:19):
That's really powerful and that's a really
powerful sentiment to share.
So is there anything else you'dlike to add or share with
fellow leaders?
Nicole Lawson (08:27):
I just think that perhaps my synopsis makes it
sound a little easier than itwas.
William Gladhart (08:34):
You just walked in and it happened right.
Nicole Lawson (08:36):
Yeah, exactly it was.
You know, waved my magic wandand everything fell into place.
I mean, it was hard to read theresponses, it was hard to
publish that information.
We did a lot of analysis aroundmarket rate.
We had very passionatediscussions around where our
final decisions should land andhow it impacted the broader
organization from a financialstandpoint, and so it was really
(08:57):
hard and time consuming workthat we took on in addition to
our day-to-day, but I reallythink it was just so worth it in
the end.
William Gladhart (09:05):
Yeah well, I think that's something that
other leaders can aspire to butalso learn from, and I
appreciate you point out that itwasn't a cakewalk.
It was difficult, it was easy,it took time and it took a lot
of energy from you, the boardand other leaders and everyone
in the organization to come to aconsensus and move forward with
next steps.
Nicole, I've enjoyed having youon our Leadership Lovers
(09:25):
podcast.
Thank you again for yourinsights.
Nicole Lawson (09:28):
Thanks so much.
Will, happy to be here.
William Gladhart (09:32):
Thank you for joining us on the Leadership
Levers podcast.
Find all our Leadership Leversepisodes on the Culture Think
Tank website at wwwt.
t heculturethinktank.
com or listen on your favoritestreaming platform.
We'd love to hear from youabout the challenges you have
faced as a leader.
Tune in weekly as we inviteleaders to share their
(09:56):
experiences in strengtheningculture and performance, one
action at a time.
Welcome to the Leadership Lever Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Gladhart,CMO at the Culture Think Tank.
At the Culture Think Tank, weempower leaders with metrics
that strengthen culture, driveperformance and return.
We're here today to learn aboutthe actions leaders have taken
to address organizational change.
(00:21):
Address organizational change.
Our guest today is NicoleLawson, CEO and President of
Orchards Children's Services.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to join us.
Nicole Lawson (00:32):
Thanks, Will, I'm really glad to be here today.
William Gladhart (00:35):
I'm glad to have you as well.
So let's start by having youshare with our audience a bit
about yourself, your backgroundand, of course, your
organization.
Nicole Lawson (00:43):
I'd love to, thank you so much.
As you said, my name is NicoleLawson and I've been with
Orchards for a little over ayear and, in terms of education,
I have a master's degree incounseling psychology.
I'm a licensed professionalcounselor here in the state of
Michigan and I have a PhD inbusiness administration.
I've spent 20-plus last yearsof my career in the behavioral
(01:03):
healthcare care space, workingin quasi-governmental,
for-profit and non-profitsettings, and personally, I've
been married to my wonderfulhusband for 23 years and we have
two smart, kind and supertalented daughters aged 22 and
18.
As I said, I've been in my rolewith Orchards just over a year
now, and we're a child welfareorganization that I like to say
was started by a group ofvisionary women, and we're a
child welfare organization thatI like to say was started by a
group of visionary women who sawa gap in services to children
(01:27):
in their community over 60 yearsago and they pulled together to
fill that gap.
Fast forward to where we aretoday, where we have a dedicated
staff of about 350 people thatserve over 8,500 children across
the entire state.
We have a family preservationarm that works really hard to
keep families together and,unfortunately, if kids can't be
(01:49):
safely kept in their family home.
We do have a foster care andadoption business line as well
to help kids who are movingthrough that part of the child
welfare system, and we also haveoutpatient mental health
counseling to address the oftentraumatic experiences that both
parents and youth who areinvolved in the child welfare
system may experience.
William Gladhart (02:10):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Thank you for the fantasticwork that you do.
That is impacting not onlyfamilies, kids, but also, you
know, you have a caring andcompassionate staff that is
facilitating those interactionsand engagements.
Would you share why you believea healthy culture is critical?
Nicole Lawson (02:27):
Absolutely.
I think your culture is adirect reflection of how
everybody in the organizationfeels about the work you do.
When they're reflecting that,they reflect that out back to
the rest of the world about whatthose feelings are and I just
think there's a directcorrelation to this idea of them
carrying your organizationalculture out to the rest of the
(02:48):
world and the success of yourbusiness.
So, regardless of what kind ofbusiness you're in, if you have
a poor culture, it's going topoorly impact your business and
the rest of the world'sperception of your business and
then, conversely, if you have areally good culture, it's going
to have a positive impact.
William Gladhart (03:04):
I love that response.
So let's begin with questionone.
It's been our experience thatleaders tend to struggle in
three key areas people, processor profits.
In your new role as CEO, couldyou identify which one of these
areas presented a culturalchallenge within your
organization?
Nicole Lawson (03:20):
Sure, I mean, I think all three are always on my
radar and something we striveto keep in balance, but picking
one, I pick profits, and I justthink there's this really weird
for lack of a better termsignificant case of mistaken
identity in the world thatnonprofit organizations should
somehow function differentlythan other businesses.
(03:41):
And the most obvious example Ican give is a demonstration of
market rate wages.
And so if I look at a marketrate study of people with the
same, similar education andexperience as my workforce in a
for profit or governmentalsetting, those market wages are
significantly higher than in thenonprofit arena.
And there's this sense thatnonprofits shouldn't strive for
(04:05):
significant or marketablemargins and that our staff
should somehow earn less for thegreater good or in the name of
the mission and I'm on a missionto change that a little bit I
like to say that nonprofit is atax status and that allows us to
reinvest our profitablebusiness ventures back into our
mission and into our staff.
But I don't think we should beasked to, or certainly not
(04:28):
expected to, sacrifice or acceptanything less just because we
work in a nonprofit space.
William Gladhart (04:33):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
That's definitely something wedon't hear often as we talk with
people in the more privatesector business space, but I
love that you know.
Obviously the profit pieceimpacts your ability to bring on
talent, to find the rightpeople to streamline your
processes and serve not onlyyour clients and the greater
(04:56):
public as well.
I really appreciate youidentifying that challenge.
You know so as you workedthrough some of that.
Changes around the profits,people, performance, et cetera.
What did that look like and howhas that negatively impacted
your organization?
Nicole Lawson (05:11):
In terms of what it looked like when I first
started my role.
One of the things I noticed waswe had this warm and welcoming,
relational, just positiveculture, and so it was critical
to me that I maintained the keyaspects of that while
identifying where we had room togrow.
And so I sent out an all-staffsurvey and I asked people what
they were happy with, where wecould improve, and the responses
(05:31):
were overwhelming related tocomp and benefits.
So, to your point, it impactsour talent pool, which then
impacts the service we're ableto deliver.
The report we got was thatpeople felt that their salary
reflected that they wereundervalued and under-recognized
, not only by the organizationbut by the wider healthcare
service industry as well.
Certainly, kind of putting thatout there and seeing that
(05:55):
impacts morale.
So you can have this reallywarm and relational culture, but
when people are feelingundervalued because of their
comp and benefits, it has animpact, and I also think it's
really important to know that Ipublished those survey results
to all my staff and my board.
I thought being transparent wasreally critical to my ability
to build trust and I wanted tocreate a sense of accountability
(06:18):
for myself as well as acrossthe larger culture.
William Gladhart (06:22):
Yeah, I mean I think you've shared.
The impact of the next question, of course, is I love that
you've been transparent but alsoshared that information back,
because that's what we that's.
A hangup that we find with manyleaders is they get all this
great information and then itdoesn't go anywhere.
It only goes to the leaders,directors board, et cetera, and
(06:43):
no one else knows what's goingon.
It's not that people are tiredof pressing the button.
They're tired of pressing thebutton and then not hearing back
from their leaders.
So I highly commend you forbeing transparent and sharing
that.
You know you kind of, as Ialluded to in this next question
, you know what was the onething you identified that helped
impact your culture positively?
Obviously, sharing that openline of communication.
But what was something elsethat you did?
Nicole Lawson (07:05):
So I mean to your point.
I think that when you ask aquestion you need to be prepared
to respond, and I have a strongbelief in data decision,
data-driven decision-making, andI think if people can
understand the why or they atleast have a healthy basic
grounded understanding then theycan accept things.
(07:29):
My team went out, they gotmarket rate surveys from across
the state.
They worked really hard toconduct an analysis for us to
see where we were in line andout of line in terms of comp and
benefits with the nonprofitmarket here in Michigan, and so,
based on action and we adjustedsalaries up where they were
appropriately, I'm very proud tobe able to say today that every
job classification in ourorganization is paid at or above
(07:49):
market rate, and we also madesome benefit adjustments and
increased some of our offeringsso that we were more competitive
in the market as well.
One example I can give is wenow have an employer-paid
short-term disability plan.
This is no longer elective andit's no longer on our employees
to cover the cost of that, andso I think the effort to listen,
combined with that transparentprocess and then having a very
(08:13):
targeted response, went a longway to reinforce the positive
aspects of our culture.
William Gladhart (08:19):
That's really powerful and that's a really
powerful sentiment to share.
So is there anything else you'dlike to add or share with
fellow leaders?
Nicole Lawson (08:27):
I just think that perhaps my synopsis makes it
sound a little easier than itwas.
William Gladhart (08:34):
You just walked in and it happened right.
Nicole Lawson (08:36):
Yeah, exactly it was.
You know, waved my magic wandand everything fell into place.
I mean, it was hard to read theresponses, it was hard to
publish that information.
We did a lot of analysis aroundmarket rate.
We had very passionatediscussions around where our
final decisions should land andhow it impacted the broader
organization from a financialstandpoint, and so it was really
(08:57):
hard and time consuming workthat we took on in addition to
our day-to-day, but I reallythink it was just so worth it in
the end.
William Gladhart (09:05):
Yeah well, I think that's something that
other leaders can aspire to butalso learn from, and I
appreciate you point out that itwasn't a cakewalk.
It was difficult, it was easy,it took time and it took a lot
of energy from you, the boardand other leaders and everyone
in the organization to come to aconsensus and move forward with
next steps.
Nicole, I've enjoyed having youon our Leadership Lovers
(09:25):
podcast.
Thank you again for yourinsights.
Nicole Lawson (09:28):
Thanks so much.
Will, happy to be here.
William Gladhart (09:32):
Thank you for joining us on the Leadership
Levers podcast.
Find all our Leadership Leversepisodes on the Culture Think
Tank website at wwwt.
t heculturethinktank.
com or listen on your favoritestreaming platform.
We'd love to hear from youabout the challenges you have
faced as a leader.
Tune in weekly as we inviteleaders to share their
(09:56):
experiences in strengtheningculture and performance, one
action at a time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!