No formal training?

Veteran FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss tells a story of his first encounter with Harvard University's top business negotiation experts.

They surprised him with a role-play scenario in which they had kidnapped his son and demanded a 1-million dollar ransom.

"I was intimidated," he says, but by the time it was over, he had beaten them at their own game. "I had taken on the best of the best and come out on top."

It's a neat story, but what he says next really got my attention:

For more than three decades, Harvard had been the world epicenter of negotiating theory and practice. All I knew about the technique we used at the FBI was that they worked. ... We didn't have grand theories. Our techniques were the products of experiential learning: they were developed by agents in the field, negotiating through crisis and sharing stories of what succeeded and what failed.

Here's the thing:

It's good to have a theoretical understanding of why certain methods work or don't work.

But experiential learning is powerful and real.

Most nonprofit leaders never receive formal training in the work they need to do. Often, such training doesn't even exist.

Fortunately, you have real experience to rely upon, and access to people who can share their own experiential lessons with you.

If you're paying attention to the actions you take and the results that you get, then you've got a solid foundation on which to proceed.

You've already spent time -- probably years -- training yourself through hard-won lessons.

Moving forward towards your goals requires a simple decision to trust what you've already learned, and continue taking appropriate action, formal training or no.

All the best,
A.