Show Notes

• Undergrad experience at Indiana University
• A change in life direction
• Starting Life Remodeled
• Nine-year impact
• Taking Life Remodeled to the next level
• How to build a dream team + create lasting impact
• An operating system for nonprofits
• Future plans, and scaling a model that works

Connect With Chris Lambert

✩ Website – https://liferemodeled.org/
✩ Website – https://nlncoaching.org/
✩ Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/liferemodeled
✩ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LambertRemodeled
✩ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lambertliferemodeled/

Additional Resources

✩ Book: Next Level Nonprofit: Build a Dream Team + Increase Lasting Impact

Summary

Dr. Chris Lambert is the founder and CEO of Life Remodeled, a nonprofit organization in Detroit that repurposes vacant school buildings into one-stop hubs of opportunity, and helps create neighborhood revitalization that lasts. Chris discusses the spiritual awakening that changed his life, and a structured operating system he created to help nonprofits optimize their impact and build great teams.

Full Transcript

Brian
Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success.

Dr. Chris Lambert is the founder and CEO of Life Remodeled, a nonprofit organization in Detroit that repurposes vacant school buildings into one stop hubs of opportunity and helps create neighborhood revitalization that lasts. Chris is also the author of the book “Next Level Nonprofit: Build a Dream Team + Increase Lasting Impact.” While studying marketing at Indiana University Chris planned to attend law school and dreamed of a lucrative career as a real estate developer. But a spiritual awakening during his junior year led to a passion to follow Jesus and Chris followed that call to Fuller and Gordon-Conwell seminaries where he earned his Masters of Divinity and Doctorate in Ministry. Chris and his wife would eventually settle just outside Detroit, and he founded a church called Ecclesia. He started Life Remodeled in 2010, and would later launch Next Level Nonprofit, a structured operating system that helps nonprofits optimize their impact and build great teams. Chris is a true visionary and it’s a pleasure to have him on the show. Welcome, Chris, and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence.

Chris
Brian, I am grateful for the opportunity and looking forward to spending this time together.

Brian
Likewise, Chris, thanks. I said in your intro that you’re a visionary. You certainly had a clear vision as an undergrad at IU not only about your future, but also about your college experience. You had joined a fraternity to position yourself, in your words, to assure ready access to girls, alcohol and illegal substances. Now the direction of your life obviously changed. What happened?

Chris
Well, as you pointed out, I live with intentionality and I’ve really lived my whole life with an all-in mentality. So whatever I believe in, I’m fully committed to. Long story, trying to make it short, I grew up in a small town in northern Indiana that was so small we didn’t have a four way stop light till I was in middle school. When it came to faith, church spirituality, my parents would take my sister and I to a church service maybe once a month because they felt like it was the right thing to do for whatever reason, and I don’t know why this is. But ever since I could remember I was this very spiritual kid. In particular, I love the person of Jesus, so much so that in eighth grade, other kids at school called me Lambert, the Jesus freak. Then I went to high school and I was trying to convert everybody to Christianity. I was not very successful at it. Right before I turned 16, I hit a growth spurt and I became kind of a big fish in a small pond when it came to athletics. I realized that my friends who were not following God were having a lot more fun in life than me – or so I thought – so I said goodbye, Jesus, really actually gave him the middle finger. I’m done with this stuff. For the next six years of my life I basically did whatever I wanted to do, whatever I thought was going to make me the most happy. Those things that you just mentioned were very much intentional and at the forefront of my mind. But my junior year of college I moved to Australia to study overseas for six months. While I was there I ended up experiencing what I would call radical encounter with God that changed the entire trajectory of my life. A number of things happened. One, I was traveling around in various countries in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Rim and of course, Australia. I began to realize the world was a very big place and it did not revolve around me and my 22 year old ego, which was an important level set for me. Then I met a couple guys in Australia who became my closest friends and they happened to be Jesus followers but they were the fun kind of guys that would go out to a bar, have a few drinks, and go home. Meanwhile I’d stay out doing everything they weren’t doing. They kept trying to pressure me to come to their church service. I said no way, it’s not going to happen. I didn’t come here to Australia to meet with God. They were persistent and their persistence won the day. I went to this little Anglican church where I remember the pastor wore skateboarding shoes and skateboarding shorts – which I thought was ridiculous when I first saw him – and that service was okay. I went back a second and third time, and the third time I went, this guy gets on the stage, tells this story that in many ways outlines the narrative of my life. As he was wrapping up, I experienced hearing God speak to me for the first time in my life, it was not an audible voice but it was more clear than anything I’d ever heard another human being say. That was my turning point.

Brian
You gave your life to Christ, which isn’t completely unheard of for a college undergrad, even one whose life was like yours – dramatically different before doing so – but then you, or maybe God, took things up a notch when you felt the call to become a pastor. What was your reaction to that nudge because that’s different than simply turning your life over to Christ, especially given how you had been living your life over the last year, couple years prior to that?

Chris
Right after I had that experience with God in Australia, I still thought that I was going to go down the path of becoming a real estate developer. Then I moved back to Indiana University for my senior year. Before I left IU there wasn’t a single Jesus follower or a Christian in this entire fraternity of 180 guys. Before I got back – this had nothing to do with me, by the way – three of my best friends in the frat had all had these crazy encounters with God, plus my drug dealer who was an atheist before I left. So I got back and they’re like, what happened to you? And I’m like, what happened to you? We all understood what happened to one another so we got this Bible study going in the fraternity. After a few weeks, we actually had about 12-15 guys coming every week. It was a pretty wild scenario, guys would come in smoking marijuana or asking crazy questions like, did Jesus have sex with Mary Magdalene? But we ended up making a pretty significant impact in quite a few guys lives. That led me to think about my future and I realized I actually didn’t have this passion to pursue the dreams that I had, because those dreams were tied to wealth and financial success. I was no longer passionate about that. I just wanted to help people connect with God. That led me to a sense of God calling me to be a pastor.

Brian
What do you make of the phenomenon of you coming back from Australia, you’ve had this epiphany, you had a message from God, and you were committed to turning your life around, then you came back only to find out that you had not only three fraternity brothers, but also your formerly atheist drug dealer also having similar experiences. During that time did you talk about like, what in the world is going on here with your fraternity brothers and the dealer?

Chris
While we talked a lot about it after that experience, I didn’t know that was going on while I was living in Australia. I actually didn’t spend any time calling buddies back home at that time, it was really expensive to make an international call and I was just a college student, so I was off the map. What do I make of it? It’s also pretty amazing that all four of these guys were all in my pledge class as well. None of us saw that coming when we pledged together and the things that we used to do. But it’s just another confirmation to me that God was at work the entire time and he had some pretty big plans for all of us. All of us, to this day, are doing some really cool work in various parts of the country.

Brian
Oh, that’s great. So you’re all still very much connected? (Chris: Yes.) Cool. Fast forward a little bit. What brought you to Detroit? You said you were from Indiana originally, how did you end up in Detroit? How did you end up starting Life Remodeled? What was your original vision for that organization?

Chris
When I made that decision to become a Jesus follower – again, back in 2002, at the age of 22 – in my mind I was saying that I was giving everything over to God. My exact words to him were, God, I’m going to stop doing whatever you want me to stop doing, and I’m going to start doing whatever you want me to start doing. There were numerous experiences where I thought I’ve given God my whole life and everything and I think it’s really a process. In many ways I gave him what I was aware of but the journey to lead us to Detroit; my wife and I, we met in LA while we were both studying at seminary. While I was at seminary through my wife’s own experiences and her – just the way that she lived her life, as well as several other people I had met – I began to get a very resounding passion for people who are experiencing high levels of marginalization and oppression. That wasn’t my idea of who I was going to be ministering to when I went to seminary. I thought I would be ministering in a predominantly upper middle class community because that’s what I knew. That’s what I come from and those were the individuals in my fraternity and the type of people I thought I’d be ministering to. But what ended up happening was through my wife’s experiences and others, I began to reread the Gospels. I realized that Jesus spent the majority of his ministry with people who were experiencing the highest levels of suffering and marginalization and oppression. So that led us both down a path where we knew that wherever we lived in the world, we’d always want to live where there was a lot of social need and also a lot of racial diversity. LA had all that but my wife was born in Romania and she moved to Detroit when she was two because of persecution under communism. She didn’t want to move back to Detroit at first, but when we both looked at the amount of investment that was being made into the lives of Detroiters back in 2000 – this was 2003 at the time – compared to the amount of investment being made in the lives of people experiencing suffering and marginalization in LA, it was a very significant disparity. I believe that played a lot into our sense of calling that Detroit is where God was wooing us to be.

Brian
Share a little bit about Life Remodeled. Being from Detroit, I’m very familiar with Life Remodeled. I think a lot of people listening or watching the show who are from the Detroit area are at least familiar with the name but if you could talk just a little bit about the mission. I know that changed a little bit as time went on but let’s start in the beginning. What was the original mission and also what were some of the biggest challenges in the early days?

Chris
Before I get into that, let me actually start with why Life Remodeled exists. The way we say it is we’re absolutely convinced Detroiters have all the talent they need but many don’t have access to all the opportunities they need to thrive. What we do now is we repurpose large vacant school buildings into one stop hubs of opportunity for entire families to thrive. We then move in the best and brightest nonprofits and help them collaborate together to make far more measurable impact than they could ever make alone. So that’s our strategy today. Our strategy evolved significantly over the years. I started the organization in 2010. We used to build brand new houses in six days, give them away to low income families for free and work through a variety of other services and needs with families and then we would invest in the surrounding communities. Then we transitioned in 2014; we actually started renovating existing high schools that are still high schools to this day. We would mobilize 10,000 volunteers in the surrounding community for six straight days to do beautification projects and blight removal while we were doing major construction projects, over about a four month time period. We did that on three high schools. Then we eventually landed on our niche, which is this repurposing of vacant school buildings. One of the things I want to draw in our journey is our first four years were very rocky. I personally made some epic fails. As the founder CEO, I hired people with yellow or red flags that I would have known what to look for what I know now but what I didn’t know them. When it came to talent that we would hire, if people weren’t already rock stars who could independently overcome their own challenges, I had no idea how to help people grow and develop let alone become a team of one. When it came to our strategic plan, we had one written down, but we had no idea how to actually bring that plan to life, how to operationalize it. Then in 2014, a buddy handed me this book called “Traction” by Gino Wickman and as a business graduate of Indiana University and someone who had started up some really small businesses myself, I instantly gravitated toward this book and its materials and I said I wanted an implementer. The implementer that I was introduced to, the cost for a year was $50,000, which I think is very fair. Implementers can charge higher than that; their services are certainly worth that and beyond. But I was operating under a scarcity mindset and I also believed that was an impossible price tag to fund. So I said, no, we’re going to figure it out ourselves and we self-implemented. We grew rapidly as we implemented this operating system called EOS. In 2019, we were actually able to work with an implementer who was incredible. We grew so much further, so much faster in that time period that I realized if I had known how much further, faster we would go, I would have found a way to hire an implementer years ago. However, we were experiencing some significant difficulties internally with the system because it was designed only for businesses. It was not designed for nonprofits. We had to do a lot of language changing and explanations. At the same time, I tried to convince – I’m not exaggerating – over 100 nonprofits to implement the EOS model and not a single one of them took me up on it. That led me to work with our team to create a system designed specifically for nonprofits and that’s what we call Next Level Nonprofit. It’s really been the core tenants of this system that have enabled us to get to the place where we are today, where now, over the last 10 years, we’ve invested over $51 million into the four Detroit neighborhoods, we’ve renovated four school buildings, we’ve mobilized 82,000 volunteers, we beautified 2300 city blocks. But beyond that we’re seeing real movement in economic outcomes in families lives and academic improvements and access to health and wellness services that are actually saving lives and leading to longer lives. So, left to my own devices, I’m a visionary who’s going to build a plane while flying it. But because I’m so passionate about the visions God’s given me coming to fruition, I eventually realized there was no way we were going to get there if we didn’t build an incredibly dynamic team of the very best and brightest people who became a team of one and truly got a handle on organizational operating in a way that led to real effectiveness throughout the entire organization.

Brian
The impact that you made – and you shared some statistics, and hopefully I’ll remember them and be able to repeat them – during that nine year period, Life Remodeled – I think you said – invested $51 million in Detroit, Detroit neighborhoods. I know that you mobilized some 80 plus thousand volunteers, you mentioned that you renovated four school buildings and beautified 2300 city blocks in Detroit, which to me is maybe the most impressive of all those statistics. That kind of impact is remarkable on a number of levels. Having served with several nonprofits, I understand first the challenge of raising that kind of money and secondly, the near impossibility of mobilizing that many volunteers. How were you able to garner that magnitude of support? That’s just unbelievable to me, almost.

Chris
Well, I’ll start with the volunteers. I like to use an analogy of opening a new restaurant. If you open up a new restaurant and the food’s terrible, the service is slow, the bathroom is dirty and it takes forever to even get your seat, you’re going to leave that restaurant and you’re going to tell seven to ten people about what a horrible experience it was. On the other, flip side, you go to this brand new restaurant, you get right in, your service is impeccable, the food is delicious, the bathroom is clean and shiny, and the decor is amazing, you’re going to leave that restaurant and you’re going to tell one to three people about how great it was. When it comes to building to a place where we had 10,000-12,000 volunteers in six days, it was very similar in that we made sure that volunteers had a phenomenal experience where they were doing meaningful work and they could see the tangible results of their work. They were constantly busy for the full time that we had agreed that they would volunteer because too many volunteer experiences are the exact opposite. People feel like they’re not really needed or they’re painting the same wall for the third time in a month, or they’re standing around, and they’re not coming back after that. That’s not a knock on other organizations because some volunteer work can’t be done in large numbers. There are really only a few types of projects that can mobilize that many people. Unfortunately, there has been so much blight in the city of Detroit that you can keep 10,000 people pretty busy for six days. When it comes to the fundraising side, one of the things I’ve learned that’s absolutely true is people give to people. You can have the best idea in the world for an organization or an operation and if it needs to be funded by individuals or family members, if you don’t have relationships with individuals of means or a large enough set of relationships with individuals who can fund whatever it is – ideas – it’s not going to get off the ground, it’s not going to be sustainable. On the other hand, you can have all the friends in the world but if your idea doesn’t produce tangible, measurable results, eventually the funding is going to dry up, as it should, rightfully so. So it’s a combination of really doing transformative relational life with people who are philanthropically minded, while also delivering on promises. We’re inviting philanthropists to trust us to steward their resources to make impact that they’re passionate about. Where my mindset shifted, I actually used to hate fundraising because I felt like a used car salesman and that was the wrong paradigm. I’m so glad I shook that because I wouldn’t be doing it today if I still felt like that. What I eventually discovered is I don’t need to beg anybody for anything, or hustle anybody, all I need to do is get to know people, find out what they’re passionate about, what their values are. And if their values align with our values, all of a sudden, I have something to offer them that can increase their desired impact in the world. We’re doing this work together, all the while, iron sharpening iron, we are getting to know each other, we’re growing together.

Brian
And it’s definitely worked. You’ve made a tremendous impact in the Detroit area and we all appreciate that. Chris, shifting gears a little bit to Next Level Nonprofit. It was clear to me even before I read the book…and I’m a huge advocate of the book, I strongly recommend that our listeners and viewers – especially if you’re in the nonprofit space – that you read that book. It’s a how-to manual, we’ll talk a little bit more about the details, there are business books that address some of the same issues. If you’re in the for-profit sector, then I would still encourage you to read the book. It was clear to me that you and Life Remodeled were able to do what most nonprofit organizations, unfortunately, never accomplish and that’s to – you alluded to this or maybe mentioned this – specifically identify best practice business principles and processes that were crucial to your success and then ingrain those principles into your organization. Not only did you do that, which is admirable, but you also took it a step further and combined those practices into this operating system that you call Next Level Nonprofit. The first question that I have around that is, who did you have to become? How did you have to grow and evolve as a leader in order to guide Life Remodeled through the creation and implementation of what is such a comprehensive system?

Chris
In my earlier days, as a founder CEO, I was much more immature than I am now. I wouldn’t say that I’ve arrived on the maturity scale, I’ve certainly evolved quite a bit. But in my earlier days, when my immaturity was stronger, I had an aversion to processes. I thought, when I heard processes, I heard handcuffs. Or even planning things too extensively, I wanted to just go, I wanted to charge. I also was very reliant on my own gifts and abilities. We would hire people maybe that weren’t ready for a position, but we tried to live financially very, very lean. When people would leave or burnout or whatever, when they weren’t the right person, I didn’t really understand how significant that was because I was just confident we keep going, we keep growing, we keep finding people. Where I had to change is I had to come to learn the healthy side of process, because I do believe there are some scenarios that are over processed and over managed or micromanaged. But there are healthy processes that are essential to organizational and human flourishing. I had to grow and realize that as gifted as I was, or thought I was, I certainly don’t even come close to having all the gifts. There are a few things that I am meant to do really well, everything else is meant to be done by others. I needed to learn how to become a team player and I really needed to learn how to become someone who knew how to build that team of the very best. I’ve found that many talented leaders, more talented than me, many, not all, are intimidated by hiring other people on their team that are better at certain things than they are. Because it can, sometimes, cause you to rub your ego the wrong way or whatnot. But I became so passionate about people and that’s what shifted my whole mindset, that it’s all about people all the time. Again, that was the shift for me in fundraising and that was the shift for me in the organization. This teaching that Dan Sullivan has coined: who is more important than how. I just say, who is greater than how, the right “who” in the right seat will always come up with better “how” than me or any individual just trying to beat their head against the wall and force it. So I became a believer in teams and organization.

Brian
You talked about some of the challenges that you had to overcome, the resistance to structure, the wanting to just go, go, go and move, really being led by your your head, maybe, rather than led by a process or a structure. What were the biggest challenges for your team as you began this process and as you adapted these practices? How did you overcome the challenges with your team? I imagine there were other people who were reluctant, maybe, not to the structure, but it could be to the rigidity or to the process or being told what to do or any number of other challenges that could have presented themselves.

Chris
I want to say there are so many great for-profit operating systems out there. I love EOS, I love Pinnacle, EMyth, Bloom Growth, Scaling Up, the list goes on and on. The initial pushback from our team was to the business language that I was introducing through EOS. Because I don’t think anybody on our team at that time had come from the for-profit world. One of the things that I found in the nonprofit world – and I don’t like this but it’s true so much of the time – so many of us in the nonprofit sector actually stiff arm the for-profit world and look at the for-profit world as exploitative; which I do not look at it that way. Of course, there are companies that are exploitative, and there are many, many that are not. But what that has led to is so many nonprofit leaders will not read business books by Jim Collins or Kim Scott, or Michael Gerber or Patrick Lencioni, or Gino Wickman, or Verne Harnish, you name it. I came from the business perspective. So for me, I embraced the language, but our team did not. Many initially looked at this as some kind of fad that wasn’t going to work for us, that’s for sure. If it did work for businesses at all, they weren’t sure of it. So it took some time to inspire the team. Again, though, that’s why we created Next Level Nonprofit, because I don’t think we should fight that hurdle. I used to actually say to nonprofits, I want them to become more like businesses. I stopped saying that; I don’t even believe that anymore. What I actually believe now is that if you were to take two organizations, one is a for-profit the other is a nonprofit and let’s say they’re about the same size in annual revenue and staff size, in my opinion, in this scenario, leading the nonprofit organization is far more complex. We don’t need to be more like businesses in many ways. We need to run operationally and organizationally even better. We need to unpack that – when you look at things like a bottom line, in the for-profit world financial bottom line is essential. It’s essential in the nonprofit sector, more essential than sometimes we realize, but we also have another bottom line and that’s measurable social impact. I mentioned earlier the right people in the right seats is everything. Well, in the nonprofit sector, donors don’t like to pay for what they would call overhead and our sector doesn’t want us to pay people anywhere near what great leaders are getting paid in the for-profit world so that makes it pretty difficult to recruit the best and brightest talent when you’ve got to count on finding Mother Teresa and there aren’t enough Mother Teresas in the world. We’re not allowed to take risks in the nonprofit sector like many in the for-profit sector can take. If I were starting a new for-profit venture and I’m fairly effective and inspiring people to get behind the cause and let’s say I inspired a venture capitalist to give $100,000 and the whole idea blows up, but we discover some new learning that’s going to lead to a much better company and solution. That same investor might get on board again, because that’s what happens in the VC world from time to time. In the nonprofit world, can you imagine saying to a donor that we experimented with your gift and what we thought was going to happen actually didn’t happen but now we’ve discovered what’s going to work? [Laughter.] Most of those donors would say, no, thank you and goodbye. Then they would go on and tell other people about how bad we are. There’s just some real differences and nuances and the list goes on and on from there. We’re not supposed to spend money on marketing dollars, right? I mean, how do you really influence society without great marketing and communication? But all that said, there are ways to operate that produce incredible, measurable results.

Brian
Sure. And Chris, most leaders would be satisfied with a successful internal implementation of that kind of system, that kind of operating system, incorporating it into their own organization but you had a grander vision. How was it that nonprofits began using Next Level Nonprofit after you created it for Life Remodeled? When did you see the opportunity to not only provide an operating system for nonprofits, but also provide coaching services to help them implement their system?

Chris
Brian, you have clearly read the book and you fully understand what we’re doing and I just love talking with you because of how much you get it. I just had to say that.

Brian
Thanks.

Chris
When we go back to what Life Remodeled does now, we repurpose these large vacant school buildings and then we fill them with dozens and dozens of nonprofits and we help them collaborate. Well, we win when those nonprofits succeed. What I mean by winning, our passion is we want to increase academic outcomes. We want more Detroiters to have access to high quality health care. We want to help more Detroiters achieve economic self-sufficiency through acquiring new sustainable, livable wage jobs. We do that by finding the right nonprofits that can deliver those services. The stronger those organizations become, the more people they serve, and the more effectively they serve them. And so we began to realize immediately [that] we needed to introduce this to our tenants but we realized that this need was so significant all around the country, and really around the world, that there is no operating system out there, that we know of, that uses these principles that all these for-profits share. We’re the first ones that translated it into nonprofit language and make the necessary changes that need to happen. I’m also the type of person – and all of our team members are like this – when we find something good we have to share it with everybody. I mentioned the the cost of a great EOS implementer, and don’t get me wrong, there are implementers that will do it for less money than that but for the really good ones that I know, the cost is around what I’ve shared. That’s not going to be accessible to most nonprofits. So we needed to come up with a solution or a coaching paradigm that uses similar principles and is affordable. Our model is $20,000 for the first year and then $15,000 a year after that. It’s not free, but it’s accessible. I mean, organizations far more than 10x the financial amount that they pay and so we’ve been able to prove its value locally. We’re now in multiple states and we are working to scale this across the country.

Brian
Wow, that’s awesome. It’s awesome first of all, that you’ve been able to create that system for your own organization. As I think about the transformation that’s possible as you roll it out across the country to other nonprofits it’s absolutely amazing, because you know better than I do, I’m sure, that that’s definitely something that’s missing in organizations. It’s missing in for-profit organizations. It’s missing in in nonprofit organizations. What a wonderful opportunity and blessing and calling that you probably hadn’t thought of when you were creating the system for your own organization. It would take an entire episode to talk about all the features of Next Level Nonprofit, maybe we’ll have a chance to do that sometime. In a nutshell, Chris, what does this system provide for nonprofits that helps them to create lasting impact?

Chris
There are four components. Those are number one, team unity; number two, compelling vision; number three, right strategy; and number four, disciplined execution. Every time an organization grows on those four components, they’re going to go to the next level and then eventually, the next level after that. It’s not a completely linear journey. It’s not as if we say, all right, we’re not going to talk about vision or strategy or execution, all we’re going to do is build the best team in the world because it doesn’t work like that. We’re actually working on all four of these components. Each time we strengthen them, we’re actually going to be able to recruit even more talented team members in the future when openings become available because we’ve become a more attractive organization and a stronger organization. One of the key features of our coaching is we help you create a two page strategic plan. Because in the nonprofit sector, most strategic plans that I’ve seen, are ten or more pages and they lack clear, measurable accountabilities, where people don’t actually know exactly how they’re going to achieve the vision. And most people don’t even know what’s in that plan once that process is over. It’s really important – and this has been a principle of many for profit companies – to distill your plan down to two pages, where page one answers the question, where are we going, page two answers the question, how do we get there; you look at ten years out, three years out, one year out, and even 90 days out. Eventually, when you roll out this methodology, through disciplined execution, and the right weekly leadership team meeting structure, and some other principles, every single team member in the entire organization – even if you have 10,000 people or 10 people – everyone will know where the organization’s going, how they’re going to get there. They will have three to seven quarterly priorities every 90 days, that directly tie into that strategic plan. So everyone knows they’re bringing valuable essential work to a goal that they’re really passionate about.

Brian
That’s extremely impressive. One of the things that I want to make clear to our listeners and viewers as they’re thinking about these concepts is what Chris just talked about, the operating system is completely contained in the book, and also links to resources that are readily available. So in other words, you can take Next Level Nonprofit and use it. There are plenty of templates right in the book, again, there are links to other templates and everything that Chris has talked about in the entire system – correct me if I’m wrong, Chris – not that this is an ad but I really believe in this for nonprofits. Again, even for for-profit organizations to have this kind of operating system, everything organizations need is contained in the book or in links from the book. You don’t have to hire the coaching Next Level Nonprofit coaches at $20,000. You don’t have to hire an EOS admin implementer for $50,000. It’s all in the book. Chris, I’ve served on the boards of several nonprofits but my background is in business. As I read your book, I was thinking about how for-profit organizations could benefit. I’ve mentioned that a couple times already from what’s in the operating system. Now I know you’ve studied business operating systems like EOS and Scaling Up, you mentioned a couple others. The four disciplines of execution is another another one that I know you’ve learned about.

Chris
That’s a good one. They’re all great.

Brian
Sure. Can all organizations benefit from these structures? Where do organizations that don’t have structured operating systems tend to fall short?

Chris
Most of those systems would say that you need a different kind of system after you get to about $250 million a year in sales. I don’t know what percentage of companies that is, but what is that…maybe 99% of companies or organizations in the United States would benefit significantly from any of those systems. You said earlier that someone doesn’t have to get a coach. I do want to say that’s absolutely true and we grew a whole lot further a whole lot faster when we did get a coach but that the book that I wrote is written in such a way that it’s all in there, all of it. Where organizations fall short is either not intentionally creating an operating system or trying to mix ideas from multiple systems and lacking clarity, being consistent for the team. This is why I could advocate for all of those different systems. But I would advocate that whatever you do, choose one and choose only one. So when I talk about an organizational operating system, by now we all know I’m not talking about software. But to use software for an analogy for a minute, if we think about our Android phones or our iPhones, our iPhones run on iOS, our Mac or our PC runs on Windows versus iOS. What we often take for granted is the operating system, when in reality it is the most important piece of software on the entire device that forever integrates every program that will ever run on that device. It makes extremely complex inputs come out very simple. The reality that I believe is that every organization has an operating system, whether they’ve ever heard that terminology or not, we all have a way in which we do those four things that I mentioned: recruit, retain, develop the best talent and become a team of one. We all have a way we either do or don’t do that, or we may do things that get in the way of that. We all have a way of doing strategic planning, whether it’s flying by the seat of our pants, like I used to think was fun. You don’t go very high and when you fall it hurts no matter how high you are. Disciplined execution, we all have processes in some way, shape, or form but if we can’t readily describe those things, I think that’s a pretty good indicator that our operating system is in trouble.

Brian
That’s really a great way of describing it. I like the analogy that you used with phones, because there’s an operating system that’s really in the background, but it’s being followed to a tee. I’m guessing that after…whether it’s Next Level Nonprofit or any other operating system like what we’re talking about is successfully implemented, that that too sort of runs behind the scenes, although it does come up structurally when you’re talking about the monthly review or the quarterly review or annual review. By the way, just to be perfectly clear, I’m a huge advocate of coaching, and I am a coach so I understand that we can go further and we can go faster with the support of a coach, not only for accountability, but also for instruction, for somebody to bounce ideas off of, for brainstorming, for advising in the case of an implementer either Next Level Nonprofit implementer or coach, or an EOS implementer. There’s definitely huge value in that and my point was that, like you, in the beginning I think there are some organizations that are going to look at a $20,000 investment on the nonprofit side, or maybe a $50,000 investment on the for-profit side and not really see the benefit, in spite of you making a pretty convincing case, I think, for hiring a coach. My point is that there are tools that are available, and better to get started today with a book or some documents that you create, some processes that you start to create. Again, all this is spelled out in “Next Level Nonprofit” than to wait for some time in the future, when you think you have the money to be able to to invest in that because that day is probably never going to come so better to make some progress in the short run.

Chris
That is exactly why I wrote the book. Because I don’t care about selling books. I don’t care about getting clients and we’ve set it up to where it’s not even a money making venture, it’s break even. We’re passionate about the people that nonprofits serve, getting the highest level of excellence and service that we can possibly deliver them for all nonprofits. So, yes, I agree with you one hundred percent. And those principles are something that someone listening to this right now who’s dreaming about an entrepreneurial venture, whether it’s in the for-profit sector, the nonprofit sector, the social sector, there are elements that you can start implementing right this second, there are other elements that you won’t be able to implement until you have at least one other person on your team. But as soon as you have another person you can be working on team unity.

Brian
Sure. You mentioned excellence. Chris, as you know, our show is called LifeExcellence. I wonder what does excellence mean to you?

Chris
For me personally, I’m a person of faith, it means that I look forward to the day where my Creator is going to say to me, good job; really what he says in the scripture is, “well done, good and faithful servant.” And then there’s some further context to that, that Jesus has pointed out really that basically, we do the most with whatever we’ve been given. Nobody is better than anybody else. We’ve all been given different gifts, different talents. So for me, it’s doing what God put me on this earth to do, doing it well, with grace the entire measure of the way because I gave up on perfection a long time ago, that’s not achievable. I want to be known as someone who, first and foremost, put God first, and lived a life of love for others and as a servant, that always found a way to overcome any obstacles that were getting in the way of people in need of service, growing and developing.

Brian
That’s well said. Thanks for sharing that. Chris, looking ahead, what’s the impact you see Life Remodeled and Next Level Nonprofit making over the next three to five years?

Chris
We just bought another new, vacant school building on the east side of Detroit, the old Dominican High School, which was a Catholic girls high school, I-94 and Whittier. So we’re in the process of doing again what we did on the west side in the Durfee Innovation Society, now on the east side. That is going to lead to tremendous access to opportunity in east side communities. These projects don’t materialize overnight, you said three to five years, it’s basically going to take us about another two years to finish this project. Then, we’ve been looking at scaling this opportunity hub model for really about seven years now. And I tell you, we’re now arriving at a new conclusion of how we want to scale and we haven’t solidified it, but I will share it here on this podcast. Maybe we don’t do this but I think we will. Instead of us buying vacant school buildings in other cities, in other parts of the country, we want to move into a capacity building and coaching organization where we’re eventually going to write a playbook on how we created these opportunity hubs, the whole process, from community engagement, to construction, to fundraising, to social impact, that’s measurable. We have found that there are so many groups around the country that are trying to do this. We don’t want to write something that’s prescriptive but we’d like to be able to give people examples of what is working here in Detroit and what we think would be applicable in other places. So it’s kind of interesting that that’s similar to Next Level Nonprofit in the sense that’s the way that we’re equipping other organizations – through coaching, through information and experience sharing – we think that that’s going to be a very effective way to scale this model that’s working really well here in the city of Detroit.

Brian
That’s awesome. Chris, thank you so much for being on LifeExcellence. I love what you’re doing and really look forward to seeing the next level of both endeavors that you’ve talked about. I appreciate you being on the show. I’m grateful for all that you’re doing, not only in Detroit with Life Remodeled and soon to roll out perhaps across the country, and also with other nonprofits through your Next Level Nonprofit system.

Chris
Well, team work is making the dream work. Everything that you’re doing is inspiring to me, and I cherish our time together. Thank you, Brian.

Brian
Likewise, Thank you, Chris. Thanks for tuning into LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with Dr. Chris Lambert on social media, and leaving a rating and review. You can learn more about Chris and everything he’s up to at LifeRemodeled.org and NLNcoaching.org. You can learn more about me at BrianBartes.com. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.