{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Ronderings","title":"You Always Notice the Referee: Calm Leadership, Big Bets on Imperfect Data, and Skill Building in Nonprofits (with Alex Cantu)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3493,"description":"When Alex Cantu trained new soccer referees, he told them to give every call about thirty seconds, because the game would show them whether they got it right. As a Chief Operating Officer, he leads the same way, watching how each decision moves through finance, HR and the next staff survey.\nIn this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Alex, Chief Operating Officer of the Surge Institute, a national nonprofit that develops and supports leaders of color in education, to talk about staying calm under pressure, making big bets on imperfect information, and why a budget should tell a story.\nAlex tells his story as three decisions. His parents in San Antonio, who never got to finish college, made his education the priority from preschool on. In high school he took up refereeing because it paid cash, and twenty-three years later he still works games on Sundays. He graduated into the tail end of the Great Recession hoping for a career like the one in the advertising drama Mad Men, and a first job in schools with a nonprofit turned him toward social impact.\nRon and Alex dig into why Alex says a COO communicates for a living, and why the role now calls for a generalist who can speak finance, law and culture without being a CPA or a lawyer. Alex sees keeping top talent through uncertainty as the sector's next challenge, and bets on skill building, with AI used to multiply what a lean team can do, not to shrink it.\nFor his Rondering, Alex challenges his fellow COOs and CFOs to keep one spreadsheet for the whole budget and make the rest narrative: the organization's legacy, what has to change this year, and the way forward. The numbers matter, but people follow narratives.\nChapters:\nLinks:\nNBA referee Tim Donaghy pleads guilty in a betting scheme, August 2007 - https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nye/pr/2007/2007aug15.html\nHow Generalists Help Nonprofits Navigate Complexity, Bridgespan -...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/jvG73cd3wc0Fdf0M72sv961IPvlbb4AzdtSqHEUr3iE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzM3MjYyLzE2NzE3/OTA1MTUtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}