Gail Bower - Revenue Strategist Gail Bower's Blog

With a nod to Martin Seligman,* I introduce you to my new blog, dedicated to helping you and the organization you lead flourish.

In the last couple years, I’ve noticed that this word, “flourish,” keeps popping up in our culture archetypally, perhaps beckoning us out of the Great Recession and recent world turmoil and towards an easier, simpler, happier, more enjoyable life. It's the antidote to the volatility many experience through the accelerated change present in our world.

Seligman, of course, published his book, Flourish, around this time and identifies five “endeavors” we may choose to pursue:

Positive emotion
Engagement
Good relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment or achievement

He urges each of us in the free world to choose this approach, PERMA for short. (Watch this short talk to learn more.)

Flourishing Organizations

Not surprisingly an organization that flourishes shares many of the same characteristics. Here are my observations:

Value

Thriving organizations are clear on their core value. It's the reason they exist and what makes them distinct. It's not the set of services you offer, the programs or products you have. That's the surface. Dig deeper. It's the heart and soul of your organization, its raison d'etre.

Meaning

Because flourishing organizations are clear about their value and who they are at the core, they can manifest and express that value meaningfully.

Engagement

Customers, constituents, donors, stakeholders, volunteers, sponsors, and others are attracted to that value and enjoy the experience of it. They become engaged and ultimately, hopefully, loyal.

Economic vitality

Because customers, constituents, donors, and sponsors are engaged, organizations enjoy economic vitality. They are relevant, aligned, and compensated or funded for the value provided.

Relationships

Trusting, collaborative internal and external relationships among staff, suppliers, partners, and stakeholders — and of course with customers, constituents, and donors — are the norm.

Positive culture

The organization's culture values a positive, optimistic outlook; is proactive in its endeavors; and innovates continously as an indicator of such culture and expression of value.

Strategy

An organization that flourishes has a clear, ambitious, practical strategy designed to guide its team into the future.

That's it: VMEERPS. Certainly not as aesthetically pleasing an acronym as Seligman's PERMA, I realize. But it is that simple. Perhaps not easy, but simple.

What You'll Find Here

My core value is about helping leaders design their futures so they and their organizations (nonprofits, associations, destinations, regions, or businesses) flourish. Through this blog, a complement to my blog on corporate sponsorship, SponsorshipStrategist.com, we'll explore ways organizations can:

uncover and bring their organizational value to life,
engage audiences in meaningful experiences,
deliver messages and articulate value in compelling ways,
generate new revenue by developing new value or existing value to new markets, and
become cultures where innovation thrives and a flourishing future emerges.

I look forward to your comments and dialogue through the journey. A couple thoughts as we begin:

I sincerely welcome your participation in the community I hope this blog will create.
Feel free to post your comments; however, please note that I reserve the right to remove posts that are inappropriate or not in the spirit of this blog. That said, challenge, provocation, questioning are all welcome.
Have fun and feel free to contact me with your suggestions, questions, or topic ideas.

Ready? Set? Flourish.

*Seligman opens his book, Flourish, with "This book will help you flourish," an uncomfortable promise for a scientist, he tells readers.