In this episode of of the Nonprofit Leaders podcast we are delighted to welcome Whitney Bishop who, for over 20 years, has been an engaging facilitator, informative trainer and inspirational communicator for higher education, business and non-profit organizations in Kentucky. A change agent for both for-profit and non-profit enterprises, Whitney has a long history of serving people in various people development roles for organizations and companies. These have included the University of Louisville, Louisville Metro Government, Dress for Success Tampa, and Brown-Forman She has crafted and conducted training seminars in a wide variety of related skill areas, such as communication, customer service, career development, change management, creative problem solving, decision making, personal accountability, strategic planning and having FUN at work. Whitney’s participant centered approach to training & facilitation puts her clients, students and participants at ease, enabling them to take full advantage of her extensive experience in the non-profit sector. You can listen and enjoy the full discussion with Whitney in our podcast. And here are some of the highlights. Create Permission to talk About Accountability ...it became clear that one of the key elements to a successful relationship between myself and my board was getting clear about the expectations. Then, learning how to hold each-other accountable for those expectations in a way that was respectful, that was effective, and that moved the mission forward. Learning how to create permission and have those conversations, and set up our meetings in such a way that allowed us to deal with the expectations and discuss what ACTUALLY happened up front made the biggest difference, I think, in our ability to communicate more openly and more effectively. Trust and Accountability Go Hand in Hand When you have people who struggle with dealing with conflict or struggle with change, you can also see that they struggle with the accountability piece. So, sometimes it went well, sometimes it didn't go well. What we tried to do was create permission in a culture that allowed us to have difficult conversations, to call a time-out and say, "I'm sensing some tension, let's have a conversation about what's happening here." Accountability is very closely related to trust. Making sure that you are continuing to build a culture that fosters trust makes it a little bit easier to get that mutual accountability that's so effective. Sometimes it’s about Slowing Down to Speed Up I really believe in taking, and investing, the time that you need into creating that cultural piece. It's a slow down to speed up, if you will. Sometimes you do need to really prepare, and plan, and slow things down so that along the way you can move more quickly. Every time that we ended up having these conversations, the more and more we practiced holding each-other to the things that we said we would accomplish, the more we stopped and asked a clarifying question, the more we got to know each-other. We got to learn about the conversations that needed to happen beforehand, to help everyone arrive to the meeting prepared to have the better focused conversations that we really needed to have. Find more information on the podcast at www.SocialGoodInstigators.com.