Strategically Sequencing the Engagement of Great Thinkers

At The Fedcap Group, whenever we are contemplating a new idea to solve a problem, we are deliberate in our approach.

We begin by gathering the most optimistic, creative, positive people both internal and external to the agency. They are invited for their optimism, their confidence that new ideas can work, their belief in all that is possible. We pose a series of clear, bold, and penetrating questions intended to drive new learning and discovery. We spend a lot of time framing the questions. At this phase, we are much less interested in getting to the right answer than we are asking the right questions.

And then we invite these creative thinkers to go at it—building on each other’s ideas and inspired by the idea that we really can change the world. There is little more exciting than a group of positive thinkers who believe in the power of unseen and untested solutions.

Once an idea is formed, we then invite another group of smart, creative people into the room. But this time, we invite people we know to be the pragmatists—the realists—who will argue with us, identify the flaws in our thinking, pose many questions, and who will help us identify the pitfalls and risks we might not have considered in our initial enthusiasm. All too often, people can overestimate the benefit of an idea or a project or a solution, but then underestimate the cost or consequence of whatever it is that we are proposing to do.

The order of invitations matters. I have learned the hard way that you never invite the pragmatists to the first meeting—they will stop the creative flow. And in the second meeting, you need to guard against letting the optimists drown out the voices of those who see legitimate risks.

Good problem-solving needs both. I believe that the strongest organizations possess the internal and external connections to solve important societal problems.

I am lucky in that I work alongside a team of extraordinary thinkers who help me lead and who inspire the best thinking of all of us. Together, I think of us as a team of realistic optimists, knowing that we share one thing in common—a commitment to sustainable and relevant impact and a commitment to the Power of Possible.

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Here Comes the Sun

February 13, 2019July 6, 2023

Critical Thinking: Unpacking Our Biases

Recently, I was presenting to our Leadership Academy Class on the topic of critical thinking. I thoroughly enjoy these discussions with up and coming leaders within our organization.

The discussion was rich and full of wonderful exchange. I am always curious about happens when one takes a step back and truly assesses one’s own thinking. It is a fascinating process and it is a commitment to bringing a “beginner’s mind” to every situation.

One of the most compelling parts of the conversation was around the topic of bias.

We all carry biases and prejudices with us They come from our upbringing, from our culture, from our education, and from our experiences. Many people think of bias and prejudice as a bad thing—something to be eliminated. Not only do I think that is impossible, but I believe it misses the point. We are not a blank slate—hopefully we have had a life of learning, of contemplation, of reflection that has formed a lens for how we see the world.

What is imperative is that we understand our biases and how they act as a filter, sorting the value of information and ideas according to our frame of reference. For the most part, people hate cognitive dissonance. They reject information that does not align with their understanding of the world. Once we know this about ourselves, this should open our eyes to the likelihood that if biases go unchecked, we might end up missing vital information. Critical thinkers are loathe to make decisions without vital information.

I shared with the class that while I have several very intentional approaches to informing my biases, one of my most effective is to ask many, many, strategic and pointed questions. Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that when they present an idea to me, the time will be filled with answering questions. This is because when I hear information, it naturally falls into my framework (fraught with missing information), and questions help me acquire a level of understanding that is required to make an informed decision. This process is at the heart of my approach to critical thinking.

How do you assess your thinking? How are you at your own metacognition? What do you have yet to learn to help you think better about your thinking? As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

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Here Comes the Sun

January 10, 2019September 12, 2024

“It is very rewarding to be part of an organization that reaches across age groups, geographies, and populations to impact the lives of individuals with barriers to long-term economic well-being. By providing a pathway to education and employment, we are laying the foundation to break the cycle of poverty for generations to come.”
Lynn Morgen
Treasurer

Lynn Morgen is a founding partner of Advisiry Partners–an entity at the leading edge of today’s capital market trends. Ms. Morgen specializes in advising c-suite executives and board members on corporate positioning and strategic and investor-related communications. She is known for her ability to anticipate potential stakeholder issues and develop strategies to address them.

Prior to founding Advisiry Partners, Lynn was a founding partner of MBS Value Partners, a New York-headquartered investor relations and financial communications firm.

Ms. Morgen also co-founded the investor relations consulting firm of Morgen-Walke Associates, Inc., in 1982. At the time of its sale in 2000 to a private equity firm, Morgen-Walke was the largest independent firm of its kind headquartered in the United States with full service offices throughout the world. During her five-year non-compete, Ms. Morgen served as Group Vice President and member of the Strategic Planning Group at STMicroelectronics N.V., Europe’s largest semiconductor company, listed on the NYSE, Euronext and the Borsa Italiana. She began her business career as a credit analyst with Dun & Bradstreet in New York and Brussels, then moved to the equity side where she held both research and institutional sales positions at U.S. and European investment firms. Ms. Morgen has a BA from the City College of New York.

February 4, 2019July 6, 2023

Mitigating Risk: Eliminating Collective Lethargy

Disasters often happen because of limits to the human imagination. As such keeping an open mind is a critical quality of good risk management.

–Mike Lutomski, Former NASA Risk Manager

In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia suffered a horrible loss. After what was deemed a successful mission, the shuttle unexpectedly exploded upon re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. All seven crew were killed. It was a terrible disaster.

In retrospect, and after significant, transparent analysis, it was clear that the accident was the result of a technical issue. It was also determined to be part of a cultural issue at NASA. What had seemed to be a minor problem—some pieces of loose foam—was dismissed as trivial and a waste of time and money to address. To call out the issue would have meant raising an irritating flag and so no one spoke up.

This is an example of what can happen in any organization—I call it “collective lethargy.” This is where those who know that we may be doing something that is not in our best interest—or worse—that we’re doing something that will put us at huge risk—say nothing.

The only way to combat collective lethargy is to instill risk management as a positive and active consideration in everyone’s job—no matter what level of the organization.

Some might suggest that incorporating risk management at every level is too complex. However, I see it as a function of culture and the result of great curiosity. I ask the staff at The Fedcap Group to consider three ways to incorporate risk management into their daily lives:

First: fix it! We are all stewards of the organization. We need to be proud of it as it reflects each and every one of us. If there is trash in the hallway, we don’t wait for a custodian’s shift to clean it up. We pick it up. If we see water on the floor, we wipe it up. We own it. If we see someone who needs help—even though it’s not our job necessarily to greet them, we help them.

Second: create a risk profile. A risk profile at its best is full-on scenario planning. What is the best case in the operation of this program? What is the worst case? What are the factors I can’t see in front of me? What are the consequences of those factors? What has happened in the past that I should be aware of? This is where our imagination must come into play. There is no scenario not worth considering.

Third: go where you need to go to be heard. If you feel that you are not being heard for some reason, then raise the issue again, and again until you are heard. Imagine if one of the technicians at NASA who was worried about those pieces of foam had pushed harder.

And, mitigating risk every single day—means bringing our best integrity and execution to our work—being proud of what we do and proud to be part of an organization that every day is changing and improving the lives of those we serve.

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February 1, 2019September 12, 2024

“We all need a chance to succeed. Every one of us. I am inspired every day to be working at an organization that touches the lives of so many people who need that chance.”
Carol Khoury
Chief Financial Officer

Ms. Khoury is the senior financial executive; she is a critical, strategic leader who effectuates change throughout the entire organization. She is responsible for guiding senior management and for holding key external stakeholders accountable for the execution of business commitments to the organization. She also oversees accounting, internal controls, treasury, budgeting, as well as financial planning and analysis. Ms. Khoury is responsible for analyzing data from both internal and external sources, and for deriving insights upon which to make decisions that drive greater corporate profitability. To that end, she also monitors financial health so as to optimize the financial performance of each Fedcap company, including its liquidity, and return on investment to senior leaders and key stakeholders.

Ms. Khoury joined The Fedcap Group as Controller in January 2014. In this role she was responsible for all facets of financial operations and for partnering with executives of subsidiary companies to drive revenue growth and efficient use of resources. Ms. Khoury also oversaw the payroll department for a staff of 4,000, the budgeting process, directed the audit, and federal, state and city filings process for the organization and our many subsidiaries located throughout the US and the UK.

Ms. Khoury has spent 25+ years serving in various financial roles in the nonprofit sector. She served as CFO of United Spinal Association Inc., as Deputy Treasurer for Nassau County, New York where she was a member of the Nassau County Deferred Compensation Board of Directors, and Treasurer of the Nassau County Sewer and Storm Water Finance Authority. She also served as Controller of Resources for Children with Special Needs (now IncludeNYC).

Areas of Expertise

• Managerial Finance

• Auditing

• Program Management

• Financial Reporting and Analysis

• Internal Controls

• Mergers and Acquisitions

• Team Building

• Business process Improvement

Contact Information

Carol Khoury
Chief Financial Officer, The Fedcap Group
212-727-4270
CKhoury@fedcap.org

January 28, 2019July 6, 2023

Striving for Excellence: A Lesson in Courage

Excellence is a moment-by-moment way of life.

–Tom Peters

Any leader worth her or his salt will tell you that they strive for excellence. In conversations with many people about the concept of excellence, I have discovered that some leaders will equate excellence with perfection. And yet, we all know that there is no such thing as perfection. But there is such a thing as excellence. It is, as organizational guru Tom Peters has said, a moment-by-moment way of life. It is ever-changing and ever growing. It is the best mechanism for dealing with ongoing and often, overwhelming, change. And excellence is contagious.

Just how do we inspire excellence in ourselves and in our teams and those we serve? How do we encourage dedication to a shared and bold commitment to solving tough problems? How do we remember to revisit yesterday’s idea of excellence, to know for certain that it will be very different from today’s?

Striving for excellence—and “attaining” it—lies in ongoing acts of courage.

The courage to pursue excellence begins with building a bold, crisp, and clear vision that reflects a common and agreed-upon set of values. That vision is met with organizational strategies and structures to hold it in place. Excellence is built when a leader will truly listen to points-of-view other than her own and question habitual thinking and familiar patterns. Excellence is built on taking risks that might mean failure—and having mechanisms and structures in place that will keep the organization safe in the face of total course correction if it becomes necessary. Excellence means standing firm for what we believe in—and understanding that criticism is a by-product of that stance. Courage requires standing steady. And excellence requires us to have the courage to be willing to dive into the mess and to state, unequivocally: this is how it’s going to be.

Only by flexing these muscles of courage and by building them day in and day out will we truly be able to solve the problems we set out to solve every day. Anything short of excellence lands us in a place of mediocrity and falling short of honoring the integrity of those who support us and those we serve.

My job is to call for excellence, to model the courage I require, and to ensure that the strategies and structures are in place to uphold our agreed-upon vision. It is only by aspiring to a new excellence every day, by calling forth the courage to take risks and model both strategic and practical integrity, will we enliven and realize the Power of Possible.

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January 22, 2019July 6, 2023

Leadership as a Value: Doing What’s Right

On this celebration of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., I am reminded and once again inspired by his simple, yet profound statement: The time is always right to do what is right.

As a leader, people are counting on me to make smart, well-thought-out, and consequential decisions—to do the right thing. I am responsible to our staff, our funders, the people we serve, our board, and to the public at large. And so, every day, I ask myself: Am I doing the right thing? I have the responsibility to make decisions every day, and with that comes the responsibility for the consequences of those decisions.

I have always believed that leadership is an evolution of thought, of skill, of insight. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as finally “arriving” at leadership competence. I can’t imagine what that could possibly look like. It is certainly not a role, nor a title. The longer I am a leader, the more I become convinced that leadership competence is most clearly characterized by how accurately one assesses a situation. The depth of the questions, the understanding of the situational nuances such as cultural constructs, politics, social constraints, and logistics—when understood—lead to smart, or at least smarter, decisions.

Some leaders believe that their job is to seek consensus. That has never been my focus. People can come to consensus around the wrong answer. Once again, I am reminded of a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr, who said: A genuine leaders is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus. By creating a process where people are driven to work toward the right answer, not simply agreement, there is a stretching of vision, of minds and hearts. There is an excitement. There is the possibility of doing the right thing—more than we ever could imagine. We actually make a real difference–eliminating poverty, inequity, stigma.

And so, as we celebrate one of the world’s greatest leaders this week, I invite all of us—no matter what role we play, wherever we work—to heed his timeless and profound advice: The time is always right to do what is right.

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Here Comes the Sun

April 14, 2021September 12, 2024

“I am proud to be part of an organization that is resilient and committed to helping people out of poverty through good jobs.”
Steve Coons
President, Fedcap Rehabilitation

Steve Coons leads the largest company of The Fedcap Group, Fedcap Rehabilitation, generating over $100MM in annual revenue. Steve oversees the work of 600+ employees at over 70 locations throughout New York and New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. In 2020 Steve’s Total Facility Management crew deep cleaned over 22MM square feet of space, ensuring it was safe for necessary personnel. Steve joined Fedcap in 1988 following a distinguished career with the U.S. Navy as an expert in aviation maintenance and an in-flight safety engineer. Steve retired in 2003 after 25 years of service to the nation.

Steve received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Science from the State University of New York.

April 14, 2021September 12, 2024

“Fedcap UK leverages all of the experience and innovation of The Fedcap Group, offering top tier services to meet the needs of UK citizens, in partnership with UK government.”
Brian Bell
Chief Executive Officer, Fedcap UK

Brian Bell is the Chief Executive Officer for Fedcap UK, with responsibility for leading and growing our successful Fedcap Employment and Fedcap Scotland businesses. Brian has spent 35 years working within the Employability sector; 18 years with the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK, and the rest on the side of providers, private companies and as a volunteer.

Brian has translated his passion for helping people to be the best they can be to both the workplace he has had responsibility for building and running, and through the services he helped design that have supported over half a million people into work. His career achievements include building lasting and trusted partnerships with like-minded organisations outside of the UK; working with governments in the Middle East to design successful services for unemployed and disabled people to find work; becoming Chair of the UK employability industry body-ERSA; representing the UK industry to a wide range of Ministers from a variety of countries; and speaking publicly in many countries about labour market risks and fixes including at the United Nations in Geneva. Brian’s philosophy for moving forward and making progress is to look for the people who have the skills you wish you had.

January 21, 2019September 12, 2024

“Mary A. Moran, PhD, is the Director of Child Wellness for The Fedcap Group and oversees the implementation of research-based interventions for young children and their families across a diverse array of companies and programs.”
Dr. Mary A. Moran
Director of Child Wellness, Executive Director Easterseals New York and Easterseals RI

Mary A. Moran, PhD, is the Director of Child Wellness for The Fedcap Group and oversees the implementation of research-based interventions for young children and their families across a diverse array of companies and programs. Dr. Moran also serves as the Executive Director of Easterseals Rhode Island and Easterseals New York, companies of The Fedcap Group. She is a developmental psychologist who has spent her career working on behalf of young children and their families–especially those who are marginalized by low income, atypical development, cultural differences and other challenges.

Dr. Moran spent more than 15 years consulting with governments and programs internationally, in low- and middle-income countries to address: deinstitutionalization; early childhood programs in natural and manmade disasters; the integration of nutrition and early childhood programs; parenting programs; inclusive education; the initiation of early intervention for infants and toddlers with disabilities; and instituting nationwide preschool programs. She worked with universities, internationally, to initiate undergraduate and graduate programs in early childhood education and to reform social work education. For UNICEF, Dr. Moran authored the organization’s training resources on inclusive preschool education—used worldwide.

Dr. Moran served on the Learning Metrics Task Force of the Brookings Institute and UNESCO and on the Global Indicators Task Force on Early Childhood for UNICEF. Her model for successful transition from early childhood programs to primary school is included in the Best Practices in Transition compendium by Dr. Sharon Lynn Kagan of Columbia Teachers College. Dr. Moran led the collection of US data for the UN worldwide study on violence in the lives of children. She is known for her community planning work employing child participation strategies.

In the US, at the helm of an early childhood agency, Dr Moran partnered with Harvard Graduate School of Education in a national collaborative study that included her agency’s Early Head Start program. Her career in the States also includes the provision of early intervention services for infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities and their families. In addition, she has led early intervention programs in multiple settings; developmental evaluation clinics in a medical school; and developmental services in neonatal intensive care units. Dr. Moran has taught on the undergraduate and graduate levels at several universities and a medical school in the fields of early intervention, developmental assessment, curriculum planning, developmental pediatrics, stress and coping throughout the lifespan, infant-toddler development, and child development. She coordinated a national training project on early intervention and was a co-founder of one of the first infant mental health associations.

Areas of Expertise

•

Strategically Sequencing the Engagement of Great Thinkers

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Recent Posts

Critical Thinking: Unpacking Our Biases

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Recent Posts

Mitigating Risk: Eliminating Collective Lethargy

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Recent Posts

“We all need a chance to succeed. Every one of us. I am inspired every day to be working at an organization that touches the lives of so many people who need that chance.”Carol KhouryChief Financial Officer

Areas of Expertise

Contact Information

Striving for Excellence: A Lesson in Courage

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Recent Posts

Leadership as a Value: Doing What’s Right

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Recent Posts

“I am proud to be part of an organization that is resilient and committed to helping people out of poverty through good jobs.”Steve CoonsPresident, Fedcap Rehabilitation

“Fedcap UK leverages all of the experience and innovation of The Fedcap Group, offering top tier services to meet the needs of UK citizens, in partnership with UK government.”Brian BellChief Executive Officer, Fedcap UK

Areas of Expertise

© 2024 The Fedcap Group

“We all need a chance to succeed. Every one of us. I am inspired every day to be working at an organization that touches the lives of so many people who need that chance.”
Carol Khoury
Chief Financial Officer

“I am proud to be part of an organization that is resilient and committed to helping people out of poverty through good jobs.”
Steve Coons
President, Fedcap Rehabilitation

“Fedcap UK leverages all of the experience and innovation of The Fedcap Group, offering top tier services to meet the needs of UK citizens, in partnership with UK government.”
Brian Bell
Chief Executive Officer, Fedcap UK