Lisa Boccia has been working in health nonprofit organizations for nearly 20 years with a focus on development (fundraising), community engagement and education, marketing and communications, and nonprofit organization management.

Some of Lisa’s accomplishments include developing and managing free programs such as camp for kids with arthritis, diabetes expos, disease management education seminars and support groups.

In addition, in Lisa’s work she has achieved annual revenue growth (special events, individual giving, corporate sponsorship, foundations and more) of 15%-30%, with some projects realizing 60%-80% revenue growth.

Lisa has been the primary lead to work with media and create marketing materials and messaging, in her territories, with nonprofit organizations.

She has earned her Certified Fundraising Executive certification (CFRE) and served on the board of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in MD and DC. In addition, Lisa has earned two certificates in nonprofit studies and leadership and management.

Lisa Boccia Resume 2018-1wi5790

My professional philosophy on OD is that first you need to build trust and credibility with clients. Starting with this culture will allow me to suggest and facilitate engaged inquiry with clients to determine the root causes of their problems and become empowered to develop and implement their own solutions.

Also, I believe that OD Professionals with their clients must consider how interventions and implementation of solutions will affect the entire system, from a system-wide perspective viewpoint.

My philosophy incorporates broad decision making and participation, from various representatives and stakeholders, and that OD is embraced and exemplified by top organization leadership (Management Team, Board Members, Investors, etc.).

All stakeholders have a long-range view and are not simply looking for a quick fix to a systematic and/or complex problem.

My philosophy is rooted in the expectation that successful OD interventions and placing an intentional ongoing focus on OD will directly result in a more profitable bottom line for organizations. Some examples of a profitable bottom line include increased employee retention,  ability to attract the best talent in personnel, increased sales and ability to compete with top competitors, experiencing a positive brand position in the market, and more.

Last, using the appreciative inquiry approach, organizations are able to see the good in people and the good existing components within the system. This allows OD Practitioners and their clients to expand what is working well and in turn find solutions to what is not going well.

Throughout my internship this semester I have been using the Action Research Model with the organization I am working with. One lesson learned so far is that recognition for change is and necessary was apparent from the beginning with my organization. I actually found out about the organization I am working with from a consultant who knew about the need for change from her work with the organization.

I have also learned that having an OD Practitioner from outside the organization typically works best in this environment. Being on the outside has allowed me to receive and deliver information without pre-determined opinions or reluctance to report unfavorable information because of employment with the organization (in the case of an inside consultant). As a result of being outside the organization I have had to spend significant time learning about the structure, mission, goals, leadership, etc.

Over the past six weeks I have spent significant time collecting information about the problem and recently provided feedback for the organization’s national board of directors and management team staff. We are now in the process of agreeing on a solution and collecting information about the action plan from stakeholders to implement the solution.

I have learned that working internally with key stakeholders to identify problems, collecting and reporting information, and agreeing on next steps is a process that engages everyone involved when the culture of team work and information sharing is present, which it is in this case.

I am looking forward to completing the last six activities/steps in the ARM with the organization I am working with.

OD practitioners encounter ethical values in helping relationships with their clients in several situations. As noted in the assignment this is often not intentional.

For example an OD professional may make recommendations for his/her clients based on personal experience or experience with previous clients. However, the audiences and needs for the current client could be very different than in past experiences for the OD practitioner.

Also, the OD practitioner could take on too much ownership, therefore creating for an ongoing need from clients. If the OD practitioner delegated more ownership his/her client would be more likely to solve problems on their own without ongoing reliance and contracting business with the OD professional.

Last, in working with clients, OD professionals could be pressured to misreport or not report the most accurate status of a project, due to internal client organization pressures to stay on time frame tracks or for revenue/expenses tied to projects.

Regardless of the situation that may present ethical challenges for OD professionals, OD professionals need to follow the highest ethical standards such as the PMI Code of Conduct to maintain professionalism and integrity in their work.

My name is Lisa Boccia and I am excited to be completing the MS in OD and Change this semester. I have worked in nonprofit organizations for almost 20 years managing revenue, volunteers (Board of Directors, etc.), Communications and PR, Administration and more.

I am the Executive Director in Miami with the Arthritis Foundation. I just moved to Miami in January after living 15 years in Washington, DC.

I am looking forward to this course and my internship.

Based on my team experience to date the most impactful takeaway from the HBR article is that communication among teams has been inadequately researched and implemented in team building. The most successful teams I have been part of included the key elements of communication- energy, engagement and exploration. Also, the most valuable form of communication in my experience has been face-to-face versus email or texting. However, I have worked in virtual teams, such as in this course, using tools such as Zoom, WebEx meetings, Skype, etc. to facilitate the face-to-face interactions.

An argument I would make for the case Pentland presented is that the patterns of communication (such as voice tone, body position and body language) are what matter most, even more than skill set, intelligence and all other factors combined. I have been part of teams where team members did not have the skill set or adequate education for the jobs they were hired for.

This caused resentment from the team members, who had to carry the weight of less skilled team members. Many of these less skilled team members were usually very nice and pleasant to work with. However, I believe we all want to work with team members who are going to deliver and contribute toward the overall success.

In terms of measuring success, I have found in this lesson that viewing a group as an open system is most applicable to my team situation. Group inputs directly correlate to group outputs, and we know teams do not operate in isolation. I have been most successful in teams that have strong organizational commitment from management regarding the group’s purpose. Often when management has commitment to a team’s purpose- resources, moral support and influence from management are provided to reach or exceed established team goals.

Special challenges or confusion that occur because of the dual nature of the Facilitator vs. Leader role include:

1- Group members assuming or expecting the leader, usually a boss or manager, to want to take on most of the responsibility for group work and goals;

2- Group members not being as open as they may be with a facilitator who is not their boss/manager; and

3- Group members expecting the voice and opinions of the facilitator to be most likely to be heard rather than their own.

In my personal recent experience as a leader and facilitator I sense that staff and volunteers, in my work environment, think I want to go certain directions or achieve specific goals simply because it’s my job and I should therefore want ownership of everything. This is the farthest from the truth.

First I can’t (and don’t want) to do everything. I want group members I work with to feel empowered and take ownership and accountability and challenge themselves.

I have worked with groups in many other settings and empowered staff and volunteers to have ownership and a “seat at the table.” This is when we experienced extreme growth and success.

Second, most of what I suggest for groups I work with is based on strategic goals and plans for the entire organization and not just the area I work in, which is my day-to-day job. Bigger picture and strategic goals are always shared with group members.

On the flip side, as staff person who has  been in groups lead by my superiors, who are leaders and facilitators, I have struggled to speak my mind. This is honestly because I believe my voice would not be heard or just entertained to avoid group conflict. And I have also been concerned about my position with the organization being seen as positive in the eyes of my superiors in these group settings.

The most important thing I learned in this class is that evaluation should be based on measures beyond financial (Balanced Scorecard) indicators. For me this is the most important thing because I work in an environment where financial success/fundraising/revenue results are the primary and sometimes only measure of performance (within nonprofit organizations).

Many other important factors are overlooked when evaluating only financial measures such as customer satisfaction, internal business perspectives, and learning and growth perspectives.

Often times nonprofit organizations want immediate results on financial success however they do not have internal business and learning and growth to support increased revenue or customer satisfaction.

As a result the average time for nonprofit staff (who are responsible for revenue generation) lasts only between 18-24 months. There is a tremendous amount of burn out and turn over. Also, staff members are made to feel like failures for not meeting or exceeding revenue goals although other important goals may have been met in the process.

The value of formative assessment, during the process of evaluation of OD, initiatives include:

• Learning comprehension
• Improvement during a change effort
• Identifying problems with OD and change efforts
• Identifying concepts or processes participants have challenges in adopting
• Identifying skills participants may have difficulty acquiring
• Assessing if standards are being met

Formative assessments can be conducted via observations, questioning, discussions, process checks, learning logs, self-assessments and practice.

Summative assessments are used to evaluate a project, course, or initiative progress at the conclusion of the effort. The value of summative assessments includes:

• Evaluate learning
• Asses outcomes of an OD effort at the conclusion – by comparing the results against the stated objectives, standards, or benchmarks
• Use summative assessment date to make decisions about further professional development

Summative assessments can be conducted with similar tools as formative assessments such as benchmarking. Benchmarking is meant to gauge progress toward a goal (during the change process) and may even be used to predict future outcomes achieved on summative measures.

Summative assessments are used to determine whether the project accomplished what it was expected to do, and are evaluative rather than diagnostic.

Employee involvement is important in an effective performance measurement system because simply put without employee involvement employees will not buy into and embrace performance management measures.

Performance management involves assessment of performance from very measurable factors such as meeting or exceeding targets for sales, recruitment and other metric driven goals. Performance management also measures less metric driven goals such as employees’ customer service skills (both internal and external), adaptability to change and unknown situations, displaying core values and mission of the organization in their work, and more.

In order to set employees up for success in their performance they should be involved in developing, among their peers, measures and indicators for success that are measured in performance goals.

For example in my organization we have many fundraising events annually with financial goals that can be measured. However, to meet or exceed these goals employees, who manage these events, must be very strong in customer service delivery when working with donors (donors are people who raise money for organizations). Donors need to feel a strong sense of customer service from organizations they support. The better the customer service, the more likely donors will raise more money to meet or exceed event financial goals.

If a group of fundraising event managers were having this conversation they could set performance standards for customer service which they would strive to achieve. This would be much more effective than their superiors telling them the customer service performance standards after decisions have been made without the managers’ input.