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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Higher Ground.
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I'm very excited today to have my friend and fellow search firm strategic consulting leader, uh Cleve Justice, join me here today.
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He founded Petrero Group 15 years ago, I think now.
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After a successful career in the nonprofit sector, he's an author and a professor and teacher, and excited to have him here today.
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Thanks so much for joining.
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Thanks for having me, Christine.
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It's great to be here.
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Awesome to see you.
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So, like us, you spend a lot of time advising boards and leaders and supporting them in their career journeys.
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And one of the things we've been exploring on higher ground is what are the experiences that shape people into who they are today?
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So tell me a little bit about your story and how those experiences made you the business leader you are today.
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Yeah, thanks.
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It's a great, great question.
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I grew up in the hospitality business.
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My parents were both entrepreneurs on the East Coast and they ran hotels, restaurants, lodges, and bars.
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And it was very much a family business.
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So a lot of executive search is really high-touch hospitality.
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You're working with busy people, you're working with boards, you're working with leaders, you're working with people who are a little stressed.
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And it's a very similar.
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And the more I think about it, I think about my background in hospitality, which really was much of my first 25 years of my life, was around that.
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And I bring that to search and we really try deeply to find the right fit.
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And it's so much of that is the intuitive piece and working hard to be customer focused.
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And how does that play out in searches?
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One of the things that I'm always thinking about that you and I have talked about, I think, is how do you balance being hospitable to clients and supporting them, being supportive of candidates, but also making sure that everyone gets to the right conclusion?
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How do you think about that in your work?
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Yeah, to me, I think about it as a trust-building activity.
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And that's part of why nonprofit search takes longer than a lot of searches in the corporate sector, because you're working with a committee rather than just a CEO.
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And so you have to build the trust with those people.
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You have to build the trust to sometimes say the difficult things that need to be said.
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And so I think I see it not unlike building a connection with a customer in a restaurant.
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You want to exude confidence, you want to hear want them to know that you hear them and that they're taken seriously.
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And sometimes you have to give bad news or uncomfortable news that the order's not going to be there right when they want it to, or you thought it would.
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And it's the same thing with search.
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Sometimes the searches take longer, sometimes you have to adjust the salary, sometimes you may have to change what you ideally want to get the right candidate.
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So I love that.
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And it definitely plays out all the time for me.
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I don't know if you're feeling this, but I feel like there's underlying anxiety in the country and the world, right?
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Generally, existential threats all over us.
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But I do feel in the nonprofit sector, we just get a real sense of anxiety, risk aversion, people scared to make moves, to not make moves, worried about funding, worried about sustainability.
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What makes you optimistic in this moment despite all those challenges?
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Yeah, I think our clients are similar in that way.
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There's just so much uncertainty right now.
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I guess fundamentally, I believe deeply in the nonprofit sector.
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I believe that the nonprofit sector in the United States is truly one of the things that makes us a great country, in that we've got a backstop to government and we've got a citizen movement, and it's not easily controlled.
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It's truly a democratic institution, one of the most democratic institutions in our country.
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And so I, while it's difficult, I just so believe in the work of our clients and the work of this movement.
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And I think that people, donors, foundations, and others respond to it, especially when you give them good talent and good candidates for that they can see the pathway to the next level.
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That makes a lot of sense.
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You and I've talked about before too.
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Something we're facing is a lot of founder transitions, a lot of people given the, you know, uncertainty of the moment are just where they are in their lives, deciding to move on.
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What do you see that's different about that kind of transition and how you work with
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boards and how the organization needs to function in a search than it would normally?
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Yeah, I think founder transitions are a unique search.
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And we've done five in the last six months in one form or another.
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And I think of a founder transition as not only the founder, but someone who's been there a long time, generally over 10 years.
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And I think those can be quite tricky because the organization molds around that person.
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And I think it's very easy for search committees when they have an opportunity to look forward, they instead look backwards and say, Wow, you know, I want somebody like the last person who left.
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And we're always encouraging our clients to really say, okay, well, that's great.
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That made them successful, but the only thing relevant now is what's moving forward.
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What are the skills that you need to take all the great work that founder did and move the organization forward?
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And they're probably very different.
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And so I think it's a complicated mix because you need to have the outgoing person feel comfortable.
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And this is something they poured their life into, and they have to let go.
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And that requires a lot of care and feeding, a lot of kind of challenging conversations and a lot of trust.
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What I will say is when the founder has set things up well, has a strong bench below them, then it goes much better.
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And I think there's a real obligation for boards to be doing all the things we recommend in terms of uh contingency planning and planning for the future.
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Yeah, definitely.
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I mean, I sort of liken our job sometimes to grief counseling as well as family therapy, especially in those founder moments.
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I find sometimes the search process itself can actually be a really positive piece of the puzzle in terms of moving people from founder as leader or whoever it is as leader to what are we looking for to owe new person, you know, and that actually that process itself is almost like a grief rebirth process.
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I don't know if you agree, but I've sort of always seen it that way.
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I I completely agree.
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And it's funny you should mention that because on the board next to my desk, I have a quote which I'd borrowed from somebody.
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It says, founder transitions are psychological processes disguised as organizational ones.
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And I like that, yeah, I often approach it that way and really help people understand it
is a grieving process.
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And that's exactly the way I think about it.
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And it's important to both recognize that's happening for the founder and also for the board and the staff and just to prepare it because I think our firms are in privileged positions where we've done so many searches, we can often anticipate things and hopefully the clients can benefit from that.
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It's one of the reasons to trust a great search firm is that they can see things and hopefully make the transition easier and better and keep it moving from a donor perspective or staff perspective.
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But yeah, I absolutely think that's the case.
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And one of the things I've noticed lately is that sometimes like grieving that comes in waves.
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The founder sometimes may be very controlling and just want to know every last thing is in order.
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And then sometimes steps way back and is super hands-off, sometimes in the same day.
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And that can be very jarring for people when they're used to the consistency of the founder.
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Well, and I think particularly if they are burnt out, right?
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Or they're just feeling like they're done or not really sure what their role is.
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And I'm sure you get this too.
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We always get that question, whether it's a founder or just a transitioning CEO or ED from the board.
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Well, what do you recommend in terms of their involvement?
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What do you recommend?
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And you know, we all have benchmarks of things that we sort of do as adults, but they're also often a gray area there, right?
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And a lot of it depends on the person and the organization.
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But I do think it's a tricky, it's a tricky thing, right?
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I don't know about you.
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I think about it'd be really hard for me to step aside.
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And I at some point I'll retire from leading an organization I've led for so long.
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You know, it's hard to step away.
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Well, it's it, yeah.
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The irony of your question is we're both founders.
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Right.
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So maybe maybe with the last people we should be talking about it with.
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But yeah, and and I think it's helpful to recognize that because sometimes the thing that you can see in others, you're not always so good at yourself.
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And I think it's something we we talk about as a firm.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Do as I say, not as I do for sure.
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Right.
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I know.
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When I tell people to build succession planning and build, you know, lots of systems underneath them that can survive them.
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I'm like, am I doing that as well as I could?
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Well, we had a good conversation with senior leadership just about that.
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Like, if something were to happen to me, are all the little pieces in place for running the business to keep it moving?
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And the answer is not entirely.
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And that is a good wake-up call.
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And it put a mirror on me about how difficult it is to be a founder and think about transition.
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Definitely.
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So tell me when we all start businesses, we're probably we're pretty naive, right?
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About how things are gonna go, how great it's gonna be, how hard it's gonna be.
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Tell me like one kernel of a thing that is even better than you thought it would be and something that's even more challenging than you thought it would be when you started this.
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Yeah, I think what I have loved about my work in search and and consulting is the ability to change the system.
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And that's why I went into nonprofits, as I wanted to improve the system.
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And as you know, we work with a lot of environmental nonprofits, and you work obviously with education and more broadly, but I found that when I was working in those systems, it was really hard to make change to the degree and speed that I want to.
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And I find that in this role, there's such an opportunity to bring in new leaders or to help the board grow and change and strengthen itself.
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And that to me is so rewarding.
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I think I was I was fearful when I left the working in a one or nonprofit that I would feel lonely or the engagements would feel shallow.
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I don't feel that way at all.
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And we've had many of our clients we've worked with three, four, five, six years in different engagements.
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And I've watched the organizations transform through our processes, and that's enormously gratifying.
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In terms of the the low points, I think probably the low point is just some of the minutiae you need to do to run a business.
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It's just challenging.
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And we're a virtual firm, so we have employees in something like eight or nine states, and you know, just managing all that is is a
work.
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And I really love the client work.
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I don't love all the paperwork and the back end work.
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I don't know what about the compliance load.
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Yeah, it's such a good question.
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And I think similar to you, the ability to have an impact.
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I also don't think, and it sounds like we have similar stories.
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My parents were self-employed, they're therapists.
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So they didn't own businesses in the same way, but I did grow up in a household where they were self-employed.
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But I don't think I ever saw myself as running my own thing.
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But I think that autonomy, that ability to have impact and drive the impact we want to have is something I hadn't anticipated, but I really love that I can say to the team, we're gonna take on this project, we're not gonna take on this project, we're gonna try this new thing or not that new thing.
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And I think you and I are very values aligned in that that we and our teams try to think about impact always, right?
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That it's about us as a business, but it's also about being a double bottom line in the sense of like also what's gonna make impact on the sector, what's gonna make a mark and make a difference.
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So that part I love.
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I think the ups and downs sometimes, right?
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So, like you said, the paperwork, but also just the inevitable, like it's on your shoulders.
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And like you, I don't mind responsibility, but it's a lot sometimes, right?
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To sort of feel like I'm charting a course, I'm hoping it's the right course.
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You don't know for sometimes six months if the decisions you're making are the right ones, you know?
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So I think you and I, you and I both have worked in the sector.
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And I think that's one of the things that distinguishes both of our firms from a lot of the big firms.
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We're not looking for just another market, right?
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We're looking to have an impact.
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And so I know that our clients put a lot of responsibility and time and money in our processes.
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I probably like you believe it's worth it and we get a much better outcome.
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But nonetheless, it's often supported by taxpayer dollars or donors or others.
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And we, like you, take that really seriously.
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So I do feel that way.
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Well, and I think we both, because we're not so
solopreneurs, right?
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There is a certain budget amount we need to charge for our services, right?
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And I think the margins are narrow in the nonprofit space, but you know, there needs to be enough to pay everybody and get it taken care of.
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And even so, I'm sure you feel the same.
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I know that paying for us to do an executive director search is a huge commitment on the part of a small organization, right?
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That's a huge amount of dollars for them.
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And we take that really seriously, that that's a really we really understand that.
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And a lot of the pitches, what you've just said, which is yeah, there are cheaper ways of getting there, but you're gonna get a lot more value for this.
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But I I don't take it lightly that it's a huge expenditure for them.
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I think what they get often beyond, and I think a lot of people think they're getting the candidate and a final person for the job.
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But what I think people forget about our businesses and retained executive search is all the consulting support, all the advice, all the building of the organization.
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And I feel like in many ways, that's as valuable as the person that we locate because that is, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, and I and I also think that that's where, to your point, us being sector specialists and you're the same, right?
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We all come from within the space makes a big difference because we're not just offering generic expertise.
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I always say we're not just people, corporate people who are like, oh, it'd be cool to do a mission thing, or you know, like we actually, this is who we've always been professionally.
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Well, it really I think it really helps us because you can feel it, right?
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Like when the big international firms come into the space, they're often taking a loss and not putting their best talent on the circus.
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And you and I, our firms, we're we're putting it there.
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That's where our market is.
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These are the people we know.
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We have repeat business, and that trust is so important.
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So I think our clients and our our candidates just get a much better experience because we know what it's like to be in our client's use.
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We've been board members, we've done the work, we've, you know, so it's not just theoretical to us.
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Fine.
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So speaking of being board members, I know you all do a lot of work recruiting and advising boards, which is really great to see.
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Um, I've learned a lot from you all about that.
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What's what's a conversation that you think board chairs need to be having right now that they may not be having in the nonprofit space?
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To me, the biggest one is how they build their bench of of talent for the board.
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And I feel like so often when we come into an organization and there's struggles, they're often board challenges.
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And I think the way that we've recruited board members is needs to change.
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And, you know, I've talked about this, but I think so often we ask our friends or professional colleagues to join the board, which is fine, but they often are overtaxed time-wise and they're doing it as a favor, which doesn't necessarily lend itself to the best outcomes for the nonprofits.
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So the biggest advice I have is to say, how can you take the search and go external?
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And it's not hard to do, but just instead of just keeping it kind of closed and secret, being willing to create a position profile, just like we do an executive search, an application, broadcast it widely, and then have to see who comes in the door rather than just assuming that your friends and colleagues are the best fit.
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Because usually they have redundant skills to yours and they're often as busy as the current board chairs.
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So I'm a huge fan, and we're starting to see this really take hold in the last couple of years of broadening the invitation.
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And then that also brings in audiences that typically haven't been at the table for nonprofits and have so much value to give to them.
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Yeah, you all have done some open board searches, right?
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It seems like you've seen some good success with that.
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Yeah, it's amazing.
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I will say typically when we lead an open board search, we get between 30 to 200 candidates.
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We have gotten upwards of that.
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And people.
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Yeah, and it is amazing because when people write to join a board about why, it's really emotional.
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You know, if they've taken the time out of their lives to fill an application and apply for a job that they essentially have to pay to be on because donations are are expected from those board members, they take it really seriously.
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And it's it's fun to watch, it's fun to see, and it's fun to see the clients just get so excited about people they never thought would would come their way and
just how much it adds to it.
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We we just did it recently for Minnesota Public Radio, and it was outside of the core market for us, mostly because we were working with boards.
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And uh, they just brought so much talent to that organization, particularly when it's most needed because of some of the federal cutbacks.
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So you're always writing and creating new things and thinking about new things, Cleve.
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What's on your agenda this fall?
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What new things are you launching or doing?
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Well, I'm doing two things.
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One is we're doing a retreat, leadership retreat.
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One of the things that's come out, and you and I have spoken about is that leaders often need more space to come together without going to a conference where it's filled with content.
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So that's fun.
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:50.799
It's called Cobb Mountain Leadership Retreat.
00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:55.279
And I'm finishing a book on boards, and that's fun.
00:15:55.360 --> 00:16:01.440
And that's been it's been a couple year project, but I just feel like I don't always have good resources to share with a client.
00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:08.559
I feel like a lot of times the board's resources are a little too academic or speak a little too low for a lot of the board members.
00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:26.559
And I think what I'm hoping the book will do is thread those so you get a piece that people that have been on private sector or worked in the government can apply that knowledge and use it effectively in the nonprofit sector because usually people are really talented, they just don't understand the nuances of our sector.
00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:27.120
Definitely.
00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:31.200
Well, anything else that folks should know about Portra Group or you before we wrap up.
00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:36.399
Boy, I just anybody who has questions or wants to follow up with me, I'm always happy to meet with people.
00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:38.879
I just want to thank you, Christina, for inviting me.
00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:41.519
You've been a huge friend and mentor to me.
00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:46.879
And uh really, you know, it's fun to that we'll get to spend some time together at some conferences this fall.
00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:48.240
So definitely.
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:58.399
Yeah, and we are we should say we're both members of two different member associations, the network of nonprofit search consultants and the association of executive search consultants, which is a global group, which we both really enjoy.
00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:04.079
And both of those are membership organizations where they take seriously uh both giving back to the sector as well as the work that you do.
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:04.799
So great to be able to do that.
00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:05.359
And I love that.
00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:11.839
And I think that's a good plug for finding other colleagues and mentors and and peers because leading is lonely.
00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:16.079
And we see that in nonprofit executive directors, we see that in our businesses.
00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:22.880
So I very much appreciated spending time with you and sharing ideas and getting feedback on how we can get better and vice versa.
00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:24.640
So I I very much appreciate that.
00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:32.880
And any of your listeners, I would just really encourage people to find other peers and mentors to to support them so they don't feel like definitely.
00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:34.160
Well that's a great place to wrap up.
00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:35.759
Thank you, Cleve, so much for joining.
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:37.119
We'll look forward to talking to you soon.
00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:38.000
Wonderful.
00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:39.039
Thank you, Christina.
00:17:39.519 --> 00:17:39.759
Bye.