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Welcome to Funding Futures: Igniting Impact…
A podcast about the elusive world of philanthropy. We will uncover innovative and sustainable strategies through interviews with industry leaders and representatives from mission-driven organizations
Listen in to enrich your journey to a sustainable impact.
Veronica LaFemina (00:19)
For the next at least five, but probably 10 years, would say staff retention, staff training and development are major strategic imperatives in the nonprofit sector. We are losing people in our workforce at a higher rate than other sectors are. We are losing really talented people who we need to spend time investing in, and we need to give them the tools to be prepared to both lead and manage and be great team members
in this changing world that we're living I think, again, there sometimes is all this focus on, here's all the programs we're doing, and here's what we're doing for fundraising. those are important. That's how you run a successful and healthy business. But, if you don't have the human capital, if you don't have the people to run it, a really big problem.
IQ Ignited (01:18)
Our guest today is Veronica LaFemina founder and CEO of LaFemina & Co, an advisory firm that works at the powerful intersection of strategy, change leadership, and strategic communications. Veronica has dedicated her career to helping executives at established nonprofits create clarity and lead change effectively, focusing not just on what looks good on paper, but on practical approaches that work in real life.
With more than 20 years of experience as both a senior executive at national US nonprofit organizations and as a high impact consultant, Veronica brings a wealth of knowledge to our conversation today. She's a strategist, facilitator, trusted advisor, and certified change management professional whose insights have been featured by Inc Magazine, The Today Show, NPR, CNN, Capterra, and in news outlets nationwide. When she's not directly working with clients,
Veronica shares her expertise through her writing about nonprofit leadership, strategy, and change management on her website, lafemina.co and on LinkedIn. Let's welcome Veronica to the show.
Bria Arline (02:32)
Veronica, great to have you. It's actually been a minute since I've seen your face in person.
Veronica LaFemina (02:36)
I know it's
so great to see you, Bria. I was excited about that opportunity to come and spend some time with you.
Bria Arline (02:42)
Awesome. Now, you are one of a rarity of our guests because you're actually in North Carolina with me.
Veronica LaFemina (02:48)
Yeah, I know we were just talking about that before that working so often with clients around the country, it's fun to have the opportunity to connect with fellow social impact folks in North Carolina.
Bria Arline (02:58)
Now, what is it like actually facilitating those relationships with your clients? I know you go very deep when you work with an organization. Is it hard to do that remotely?
Veronica LaFemina (03:07)
You know, I have been working remotely since 2017. So this is normal for me. And actually, I always joke, my mother started working remotely in the mid 1990s. So I feel like I had a really good example in her of how to develop relationships with folks, how you stay connected and work together. So I am fortunate that with my clients,
Bria Arline (03:11)
⁓ wow.
Veronica LaFemina (03:31)
We get to spend some good time together and spend time on those relationships. I work with a lot of organizations that have remote staff too. And so I think the opportunity to work remotely is pretty common with those organizations. So I do certainly have orgs where everybody's in person. And so when I get the chance to go be there in person and spend time with people, that's lovely as well.
Bria Arline (03:54)
Wow, I didn't even know it was legal to work remotely in the 90s or at least that's a post-COVID thing only.
Veronica LaFemina (03:58)
Yeah.
I know, right? We've had it around for a while, but it was that big shift really that I think it helped so many more organizations embrace it.
Bria Arline (04:11)
Little bit of teasing there. I actually think remote work is a great way to get things done. And I know our team, they're funny. They'll say, we want an office. I'm like, you're never going to come to it.
So can you tell us a little bit about what you do? It's kind of a broad concept, but I'd love to hear. You have such a great way of explaining things.
Veronica LaFemina (04:30)
Thanks, Bria I do try to make the complex easier to understand. So I'm founder and CEO of La Femina & Co. And we're a strategic advisory firm. We primarily work with established nonprofit organizations, groups that have been in existence 10, 50, 80 years that are at some kind of important strategic moment or inflection point. Some of our work is around
helping those organizations and the executives who lead them really get clear on what is our strategy as an organization. Like maybe we do a lot of things, but what are we saying is the specific way we're going to try to make impact in the world and how can we give ourselves permission to focus on what we do best, the roles that we play in our community instead of just kind of jumping to.
whatever programs are getting the most funding at the moment, know, expanding things into areas where we don't really have the capacity or the business model for it to make sense. I also do a lot of work with organizations on leading change well. So in nonprofit world, for many leaders who have come up through the ranks, they may not have gotten any formal professional development or what they have gotten is very specific to
Bria Arline (05:20)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Veronica LaFemina (05:43)
their area of work. So perhaps if you're a fundraiser, you've gone to conferences put on by AFP or by grant professionals associations. If you work in programs or evaluation, perhaps you've done specific learning related to that. But oftentimes as people get into leadership roles, they go from being these great project managers or program managers.
Bria Arline (05:50)
Yeah.
Veronica LaFemina (06:08)
So then having to lead more by influence and by understanding how to scale impact through their team. And so in these times of great change, as new technology is shaping how we work, as turnover continues to be high in our sector, we work with organizations on equipping their leaders to know what does it take for humans to change and why does change fail in organizations so that we can then take the right steps to
Make sure that the changes that we're approaching are thoughtful and are set up for success. So we don't end up in that spin cycle of change where everyone's exhausted and nothing's really working right.
Bria Arline (06:44)
You know, that brings up so many points of where you just add value. I'm thinking about those established organizations where, you know, when they started their organizations, the world looked one way, the problem looked one way, the people they were serving look were at this background, this worldview. And then you come up, I'm thinking 80 years is a long time. And I feel like there would be some stagnation of how we're doing what we're doing and then maybe even some disconnect from the community.
Have you found that?
Veronica LaFemina (07:09)
I think it depends on the organization. One thing that I think is common is that because of how they've evolved, the operations get tricky, right? They're increasingly complex, trying to figure out who's on first, who has primary responsibility for certain things. And also, is this still a priority? Even if it's something we've been doing for 50 years, you know, it's really hard to say goodbye to something that was incredibly effective.
Bria Arline (07:29)
Hmm.
Veronica LaFemina (07:36)
in a past time, but it's not necessarily what's needed as we build our future together. And so I think you add to that the fact that there's just a lot more turnover in the sector. It's more unusual now to see an executive team where everyone has been there for more than four years, more than five years. And while fresh ideas and new expertise can be so valuable,
Bria Arline (07:46)
Hmm.
Veronica LaFemina (08:00)
that constant change spin cycle means we never really get our feet under us. We never really understand what's working. We may lose connection with the community, but often what we do too is lose an understanding of what our impact is or what we do best because we're so busy doing so many things that are all in a constant state of change. And I think that is, you for a lot of the leaders I work with, the aha moment of
how change works, especially in social impact organizations is a bit different than how it works in the private sector. And that we sometimes are getting in our own way, right? We're not setting it up for success. We're actually making it harder for our teams to effectively implement whatever change. truly it could be you're starting a new program, you're implementing a new technology system, you're fundamentally shifting.
the way you work or how parts of the organization work together. But we have all of these unnecessary barriers and an unreasonable expectation of how much we can get done or how much can be effectively changed at once. We have a big desire to change, but I say about our sector sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our hands and we need to be able to better move at the speed of our hands so that we can build it right.
Bria Arline (09:10)
Mm.
That is such... You've told me before that you feel like a big sister to your clients, and I just appreciate that hand-holding approach because you do put so much of your heart and soul into nonprofit work, which is honestly why nonprofit leaders and professionals are some of my favorite people on the planet. The passion, the self-sacrifice. But it must be challenging to come to a point where you have to almost retire what...
Veronica LaFemina (09:18)
Sometimes.
Bria Arline (09:38)
probably feels like your baby and move on to something new. And I'm really grateful that you're there to help them navigate that change.
Veronica LaFemina (09:45)
So something I know about executives that because of working, you know, across my 20 years, whether I was supporting nonprofit industry and house nonprofits or supporting leaders in other sectors, even leaders that that seem to staff and the team, like they have all the power, they have all of the ability to move forward and make choices about these things.
A lot of leaders don't feel they have that power, right? They are dealing with a board of directors, they're dealing with donors, they are dealing with grants and whether or not they're gonna have the funding to do what they need to do. So much of my work is about being here for the humans who are there in leadership and helping them connect with the humans who work in their organizations. I am very unapologetic about the fact that
The people who power our organizations are most often our first and most important audience. Of course, we are there supporting our community. Of course, we there delivering services and programs that are very needed. But if our staff doesn't get it, whether that's the strategy or why we're changing or what the organization is going to look like going forward, it's not going to happen. And too often, staff are sort of last on our list because we're so used to
saying, our community and our donors and our funders and everyone else out there needs to hear from us in this very thoughtful way. Or we're building it for external eyes instead of really thinking about how do we fundamentally make this work with the business and operating model that we have with the talent we have? What does it take to make that happen? And for the leaders I work with, they're very cognizant of
They care and want their staff to be connected. They want them to be supported and cared for, but they may not have come up in that kind of environment either in the nonprofit world. And so in some ways it's about shifting generational perspective. You what made you successful in the eighties and nineties and early and the odds, you know, is not necessarily what's going to make leaders or organizations successful now.
Bria Arline (11:32)
Hmm. Yeah.
Mm.
Veronica LaFemina (11:49)
and for the next 10 or 20 years. So I do think, you know, for leaders, it's tough to say goodbye, you know, to some of those big important things. And it's tough for staff too. And actually a big part of change leadership work is helping the organization get good at goodbyes, right? Because all change actually starts with an ending.
We're saying we are no longer going to work this way and we are moving towards working this new way. And so we have to be creating that space to say.
Bria Arline (12:10)
Yeah.
Veronica LaFemina (12:19)
to honor the work of the past, right? To say how important this has been and also to co-create that future. you know, a concept that I talk about a lot with leaders with respect to this is like, even when we're so excited and it feels like such a good change, all change involves loss. Could be loss of a program, but it could be loss of expertise.
I used to know exactly how to do my job and now I don't know how to do it anymore. Could be loss of feeling like I don't have the same kind of position or I don't feel as confident in what I'm doing because I have to learn something new. So even if it's something folks have been asking for, even if this has been on the list for a long time, that can feel like a win, but we still have to make space for the grief that comes with loss and grief is tricky and not everyone's going to be excited on the same day.
Not everybody's gonna wanna do that work. So I think that part for a lot of leaders that I work with is a little bit of a light bulb moment that even good change comes with loss and without loss comes grief. And if we're just powering through a work plan instead of making space for our teams or our partners to honor that work and grief, gets really hard for folks to move on.
Bria Arline (13:08)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Veronica LaFemina (13:35)
even if they were excited about what was coming next.
Bria Arline (13:36)
Yeah.
think it's remembering how complex humans are, we can be excited and sad, we can be ready to move forward, and then just needing that time to sit. And this can all be happening at the same time. And it's quite a challenge for anyone to be able to respect the full holistic view of the person, especially when you've got deadlines and funders and donors and boards. So that would you say that that is one of the main reasons why change fails or
Veronica LaFemina (13:48)
Mm-hmm.
Bria Arline (14:02)
would you say that might be not communicating with the team well or what are some other factors?
Veronica LaFemina (14:07)
So the number one reason why change fails in organizations is a lack of visible and engaged leadership. And there are lots of reasons for that lack of visible and engaged leadership. So sometimes I have a graphic I share sometimes about what we might understand as like a launch and leave leader. So someone who gets really excited tells you about the new thing and then they walk away and let you as a team figure it out.
Bria Arline (14:15)
Hmm.
Veronica LaFemina (14:32)
and then you're back to the next new thing. So they're constantly launching, but nothing's taking hold because we weren't there through the totality of the change. Part of the reason for that is leaders on boards get really excited about lots of changes to do and aren't necessarily asking the hard questions about what does the organization have capacity to take on right now? How can we invest in change over time instead of like big?
uprooting of systems and programs all at once? Are we taking on too much change? lot of organizations over plan, right? So we're going to do these 47 things in our strategic plan, which is not a strategy, right? It's just a list of items we would like to accomplish. And so because of that, because of that lack of visible and engaged leadership, staff are so smart.
If the VP cares about this week, but they know that they're going to be onto something next month, they're not going to do it. Why waste your time when you're being asked to do so much more? You're just going to keep doing what you're doing. And so your early adapters and your folks who are excited are going to fall off too, because they're going to be like, where'd you go? I thought this mattered. I thought we cared about doing things this new
Bria Arline (15:35)
Right.
I'm honestly just agreeing with you and got pictures of nonprofits floating through my mind where to your point, the this next big thing, a great thing was introduced, but then is introduced with a host of maybe three or four other really great big things that we're doing. And I think when you have that mentality of trying to make things go so quickly and probably running before you've even crawled.
For good reason, that's probably how you started your nonprofit in the first place. But I feel like there's a point where it just needs to settle and that probably is a little bit scary in some respects.
Veronica LaFemina (16:10)
Yeah, there's this great phrase that I first learned from someone who was talking about it in the context of firefighters, but it's used in a lot of different places. And it's called go slow to go fast. And when we are these larger organizations that were more complex, and even when we're smaller organizations, but maybe we're hitting a new area of growth, or we've evolved to a certain point.
We stay in that, you know, high-paced, really fast moment. And what it means is everything actually takes longer. So we're busy, but not productive. And when we go slow to go fast, we say, what does it take to get this better coordinated? To have a better shot at success and a long run. Not perfect, right? We're always going to learn. We're always going to iterate. But what if we spent...
an extra month or six months working to get it right now to save years of fractured, not quite working stress down the road. know, and a concept I talk about a lot with my clients is if you're an executive, one of the most important things you can do in order to stay visible and engaged is figure out what can wait and
Bria Arline (17:08)
Yeah.
Veronica LaFemina (17:24)
build your own stamina and protect it. Change is not a six month process. It takes years and sometimes generations, right? Not for small things, obviously, but are you willing to stick it out for 18 months, two years, four years to make this level of change that you're introducing successful? Can you be committed to that and be okay when it's
gets clunky and hard and when we're in the messy middle of things. And what do you need personally, mentally, physically, spiritually, professionally? What do you need to keep your stamina up? Leaders often are not great at asking for help. They're not great at saying to their colleagues, hey, if you see my door open when you walk by, could you please close it because people are always interrupting me and what I really need is the ability to focus.
Bria Arline (18:01)
Hmm.
Mm.
Veronica LaFemina (18:12)
Or, hey, could you check in and see if I went for the run I needed to go on this weekend? Just ask me how it was because I feel I can be accountable to you. And if someone's helping me, I want to do that. But we just, as leaders, so many of us are used to just like getting it all done, figuring it out, and I can make it happen. And ultimately, that's not scalable, right? You may be able to do that as a leader, but a whole organization can't do that.
Bria Arline (18:37)
You know, I'm thinking of an organization that we had worked with previously, and they were actually trying to build a model that was more where the leadership reflected more of the participants that they actually served. And having to go through that executive shift where the founder stepped away, where the a lot of the executive team were new. You know, it a I would just want to congratulate them for how well they were doing.
but also understanding the amount of stress that they were under. Would you feel like that type of change is one of those changes where you might feel the ripple effects a year, two years, maybe three years down the road?
Veronica LaFemina (19:05)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. And I think there are ways to shorten the timeline, right? It sounds like they were really thoughtful about making sure that the organization was reflective of its community. That seems very value-driven to me. A new leadership team can always benefit from how are we going to work well together? What are we going to do when conflict arises? You know, it can be very easy to
stay cheery and everyone's excited and we're gonna work together and that's great energy. And also we have to take some time to say, what are we gonna do when this kind of situation comes up? It's not to be a downer, it's to help you prepare so that you're not waiting for a crisis moment, you're not waiting for a big disagreement to happen and you have a clear understanding of how you're gonna work together to make it happen because then,
we're able to communicate that to our team. Hey, you have a conflict with someone on this other team or something's not working, here's how we're gonna handle it. Here's how it'll work instead of what often happens, right, which is.
folks kind of working at cross purposes, which is not what our community needs. It's not what our teams need. But if they're not feeling that kind of direction from the leadership team, it is something that can happen, right? And regardless, even if a leadership team does everything really well, it's still gonna take time. The staff members who were there before you need time to learn a new way, to learn new personalities, to understand the shift.
You know, if there's a different cultural dynamic, if there's a different communications dynamic, all of that can come into play. But I think being really thoughtful in the beginning and not expecting for our boards and for executives, this is really important, not expecting productivity to remain at the same level. Right. So in change and transition research, right. Productivity dips during change.
People are uncertain. It's not clear what their new job responsibilities are or how it'll all come together. So it can't perform 100 % at the old way that we said is going away and also learn the new way. There's not a way to do that. And so that's a expectation setting and reality that leaders and boards both can do themselves a big favor by understanding, by saying this year,
Bria Arline (21:19)
Yeah.
Veronica LaFemina (21:35)
or for these two years, we're really focusing on team dynamics. We're really focusing on supporting and stabilizing the new executive team. We're really focusing on how do we keep this engine running well instead of running it to burnout.
Bria Arline (21:52)
It's incredible that you give them that permission to focus on what doesn't seem like the high impact, high value activities. But those are the things that build the sustainable organization that actually reduce the amount of staff who are burning out and needing to find someplace else, helping to actually increase productivity in the long run because your teams are actually communicating and working together as opposed to having opposing agendas even not.
you know, they really aren't opposing where we're all just trying to do our best to further the mission.
Veronica LaFemina (22:22)
well, I think too, you for a long time, the nonprofit industry has sort of gotten away with, or the sector at large has gotten away with not treating staff that well, not compensating staff that well, kind of expecting that because you care about making the world a better place, you're not that interested in your own career advancement or making sure that you can, you know, afford childcare or afford to live near.
your place of work
For the next at least five, but probably 10 years, would say staff retention, staff training and development are major strategic imperatives in the nonprofit sector. We are losing people in our workforce at a higher rate than other sectors are. We are losing really talented people who we need to spend time investing in, and we need to give them the tools to be prepared to both lead and manage and be great team members
in this changing world that we're living I think, again, there sometimes is all this focus on, here's all the programs we're doing, and here's what we're doing for fundraising. And those are important. That's how you run a successful and healthy business. But, if you don't have the human capital, if you don't have the people to run it, a really big problem.
there
will be no impact. And whatever fundraising you do bring in is going to start reducing because you don't have the fundraisers to do the work or you don't have the grant writers or you don't have the programs that can secure grants because of the impact they're having. So, we really are at this interesting point, I think, for our sector where
we've gone too long without investing in people from leadership all the way down. And, we're in a bit of a pickle. So, you know, investing in that, making sure that we're preparing people for tough times or for really big growth periods, that's what sustainable and scalable impact is going to come from, right? As leaders who are prepared
and who can support their teams through times of change.
IQ Ignited (24:34)
Did you know there are some keywords proven to convince people to invest in your mission? These power words have helped some nonprofits see a 10 % increase in donations. Do you want this secret list? Check out the link in the show notes to download our free resource, 14 power words to transform your pitches into cash engines.
Bria Arline (24:59)
You you bring up a good point so far as preparing to allow for organizational change. And if I could even just say, I'm not even sure we're talking about change. I think we're really talking about maturity. You know, the organization's going through that phase where we're all growing. We're never going to stop growing. don't think a nonprofit should stop growing. I don't think a business should stop growing and learning. What are some other things that leaders can start doing today to improve their chances of future organizational change?
Veronica LaFemina (25:09)
Mm.
Bria Arline (25:25)
being successful. mean, we're talking about investing in their staff, we're talking about being mindful about what changes they're introducing and when, and understanding the timeline. What are some other things that they could do?
Veronica LaFemina (25:34)
Yeah, so some conceptual things and some practical things. One of the biggest concepts I have leaders think through when we're working on change leadership work is this idea that comes from Montessori education, and it is called a well-prepared environment. So when you take the time to set up the work environment, and we might call that like,
Bria Arline (25:48)
Hmm.
Veronica LaFemina (25:59)
the culture and having the right tools or systems in place. But creating a well-prepared environment means the difference between a bookshelf that is stacked to the gills and everything shoved in there and just like, well, it gives me the shivers just thinking about it, right? And then we might think, okay, but if everything's organized and color coded, that feels better, that's well-prepared, but there's still too much to look at. There's too much that's pulling focus.
Bria Arline (26:00)
I don't know.
Veronica LaFemina (26:25)
So how can we really give our team permission to focus? What is most important? We don't get to use the word priority if we're not actually creating a specific hierarchy of do this, not that, right? It's a very overused term in our environment. So that well-prepared environment says when we give people the right tools and the right systems and
Bria Arline (26:42)
Ha ha ha.
Veronica LaFemina (26:51)
specific work to focus on, they can achieve far beyond what we might think possible. But if we keep throwing barriers in their way, if we keep saying, you just have to figure it out, we cannot expect that they're going to be able to deliver on everything as well as we need them to. So we have to make that decision as leaders, right? We have to go to bat and say, listen, I know this
initiative is a priority of the board, but it's got to wait. Our team is not going to make it, like it's not going to happen. If you want everything done poorly, sure. But that takes a lot of courage, right? And leaders to make that happen. The other thing is preparing your managers to talk to teams, whether it's times of change, whether it's times of crisis.
Bria Arline (27:19)
Hmm
Veronica LaFemina (27:35)
Often, the group that is most resistant to change is people managers and frontline employees. Because usually they're not consulted and it affects them most whatever change has been decided. But also because a manager or supervisor, they're an employee first. And if you haven't spent the time with them to help them be prepared to talk to their team, to give them the right tools.
Bria Arline (27:46)
in half.
Veronica LaFemina (28:00)
to include them in the conversations so they can then.
communicate to their team in a way that is hopeful, thoughtful, appropriate, strategic, then right at that beginning, we're dealing with a lot of resistance and a lot of difficulty because we just didn't spend the time to say, hey, we know this is hard and we want you to be prepared to be the leaders we need you to be in this moment.
I think too often when organizations are investing in professional development, they're not necessarily thinking about them. They're not thinking about what do our processes look like internally to make sure that people aren't just going to a class to learn about something, but that when they come back, we're doing work here. We're saying, yes, we will give you.
talking points or a Q &A or whatever tools and materials you need to help communicate with your team. We will have regular forums where you can ask questions and get the support you need. We are open to the fact that something might get discovered that doesn't work well here. So we want that feedback. We want that engagement. But really thinking about how to make managers and supervisors feel connected to that work and not like it's just being done to them.
is huge. that, you know, to your point, that's not just a change thing, that's an everything, right? We don't want staff going to their supervisor and the supervisor being like, I don't know, I found out when you did. I guess we'll see. Okay, well, that's right there. We're already well behind where we had hoped we would be.
Bria Arline (29:21)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, creating that buy-in. Veronica, what is, can you give us a story of an organization that you're particularly proud of and the way they manage change well?
Veronica LaFemina (29:43)
that's a good question. I don't like to give a lot of specifics about my clients because that's part of the work of being an advisor is being able to be there in difficult But there's actually maybe an individual story that comes to mind, which is sometimes this work can sound a little fluffy. Right. ⁓ that's nice. We want to lead change well.
Bria Arline (29:50)
Of course.
Veronica LaFemina (30:07)
Um, and there are always when I'm first, you know, starting training or doing advisory work with folks, um, there's sometimes skepticism about, know, how is this going to apply to my work or does this really matter? and not that long ago, I had, um, an executive team member say that going through the trainings that we did and going through the advisory process, he,
Bria Arline (30:16)
Hmm.
Veronica LaFemina (30:35)
felt so much better prepared to understand how change works in organizations. And also that he was able to take change less personally, right? That it wasn't something that felt like was being done to him, but something that, you know, these are natural feelings that happen when change goes on. These are natural steps or,
consequences of change. And so just knowing that there is a path forward and that this wasn't unique to their organization gave him a lot of confidence in his ability to help the team move forward to support his colleagues. And that to me was such an important, you know, from someone who is maybe a bit of a skeptic in the beginning, such an important mindset shift.
because change isn't about changing other people, it's first about changing yourself, being willing to change yourself and the way you work in order to help other people change as well. And so that kind of self-reflection, I would say other folks on that team too had similar moments that is gonna prepare them better for each step of the journey as they keep practicing.
change. That's another concept that comes up a lot in my work, which is, know, as, as adults, we're really terrible at letting ourselves practice. We expect to get it right the first time and we hold others accountable for getting it right the first time, but that's not how we learn and work as humans. So when we can build in practice to our timelines, to our expectations, to how we're communicating with our team.
We are already.
creating a well-prepared environment, right? We're already saying, hey, we know this is a natural part of change and we're acknowledging it and we're not going to be shaking our finger at you if you get around the first time. We're gonna create enough space to learn and grow.
Bria Arline (32:31)
Yeah, no, I love that one of our core values is care first. And we'd like to apply that to the team and that when we institute this change, when we do this new policy, policy shift, or even we just have a debrief from the last month, we want to hear your opinions, we want to let you know that we don't make mistakes, we have growing experiences. And there's just it's a huge freedom, especially. And you can speak to this as a consultant. Sometimes there's a lot of unbearable pressure to get it right.
Veronica LaFemina (32:57)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Bria Arline (32:58)
every
time, the first time. So to be able to that freedom to your team, you know, it's just, you're less alone. It's really great.
Veronica LaFemina (33:05)
Yeah, I love hearing that too. I love hearing how your team implements and lives that value, right? Because so often like values just live on a website, but I always say values need verbs. And so showing what it looks like in action, being able to live that is a really important part too of building the trust it takes for people to try something new and practice and mess up and then ultimately get really good at it.
Bria Arline (33:17)
and
Yeah, and I love that you build those competencies before the change is necessary, before I have to create this new program that's going to impress all the funders and do all the things, you know, let's start at the heart and then you'll know how to do change well. So Veronica, we could listen to you all day. You probably don't want to be here all day. So if we wanted to learn more about you, wanted to follow you and just continue gaining from your insights, or if we wanted to work with you, where can we find you?
Veronica LaFemina (33:42)
Mm-hmm.
Folks can visit me on my website, which is lafemina.co. And also I write weekly on LinkedIn on topics like change leadership and strategy and try to provide a lot of practical advice for what leaders can be doing right now. So Veronica Lafemina on LinkedIn is the best way that find me there.
Bria Arline (34:19)
Well, Veronica, thank you so much for being with us and we can't wait to have you back next time.
Veronica LaFemina (34:23)
Thanks Bria was such a pleasure.