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Rely on Bottom-Line Thinking

“There ain’t no rules around here. We’re trying to accomplish something.”

—THOMAS EDISON, INVENTOR

How do you figure out the bottom line for your organization, business, department, team, or group? In many

businesses, the bottom line is literally the bottom line. Profit determines whether you are succeeding. But
dollars should not always be the primary measure of success. Would you measure the ultimate success of your
family by how much money you had at the end of the month or year? And if you run a non-profit or volunteer
organization, how would you know whether you were performing at your highest potential? How do you think
bottom line in that situation?

A NONPROFIT’S BOTTOM LINE

Frances Hesselbein had to ask herself exactly that question in 1976, when she became the national
executive director of the Girl Scouts of America. When she first got involved with the Girl Scouts, running the
organization was the last thing she expected. She and her husband, John, were partners in Hesselbein Studios,
a small family business that filmed television commercials and promotional films. She wrote the scripts and he
made the films. In the early 1950s, she was recruited as a volunteer troop leader at the Second Presbyterian
Church in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Even that was unusual, since she had a son and no daughters. But she
agreed to do it on a temporary basis. She must have loved it, because she led the troop for nine years!
In time, she became council president and a member of the national board. Then she served as executive
director of the Talus Rock Girl Scout Council, a full-time paid position. By the time she took the job as CEO of
the national organization, the Girl Scouts was in trouble. The organization lacked direction, teenage girls were
losing interest in scouting, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to recruit adult volunteers, especially with
greater numbers of women entering the workforce. Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts was considering opening itself
to girls. Hesselbein desperately needed to bring the organization back to the bottom line.
“We kept asking ourselves very simple questions,” she says. “What is our business? Who is our customer?
And what does the customer consider value? If you’re the Girl Scouts, IBM, or AT&T, you have to manage for a

mission.”^21 Hesselbein’s focus on mission enabled her to identify the Girl Scouts’ bottom line. “We really are
here for one reason: to help a girl reach her highest potential. More than any one thing, that made the
difference. Because when you are clear about your mission, corporate goals and operating objectives flow from

it.”^22
Once she figured out her bottom line, she was able to create a strategy to try to achieve it. She started by
reorganizing the national staff. Then she created a planning system to be used by each of the 350 regional
councils. And she introduced management training to the organization. Hesselbein didn’t restrict herself to
changes in leadership and organization. In the 1960s and ’70s, the country had changed and so had its girls
—but the Girl Scouts hadn’t. Hesselbein tackled that issue, too. The organization made its activities more
relevant to the current culture, giving greater opportunities for use of computers, for example, rather than
hosting a party. She also sought out minority participation, created bilingual materials, and reached out to low-
income households. If helping girls reach their highest potential was the group’s bottom line, then why not be
more aggressive helping girls who traditionally have fewer opportunities? The strategy worked beautifully.
Minority participation in the Girl Scouts tripled.
In 1990, Hesselbein left the Girl Scouts after making it a first-class organization. She went on to become the
founding president and CEO of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, and now serves as
chairman of its board of governors. And in 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
President Clinton said of Hesselbein during the ceremony at the White House, “She has shared her
remarkable recipe for inclusion and excellence with countless organizations whose bottom line is measured not

in dollars, but in changed lives.”^23 He couldn’t have said it better!