E-006 Survival Tips-My Boss is Going to Hell or Jail - Grant Talks with Johna Rodgers GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA
Episode Summary:
### Quick Episode Summary Grant Talks Podcast [#006]
*Intro ***.41***
* Fire Away Questions Johna Rodgers GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA ***1:30***
* Live from the NGMA Conference – Survival Tips-My Boss is Going to Hell or Jail***5:41***
* Characteristics of Great Bosses When Working with Grants ***7:49***
* How “More” Gets Grant Managers (and Bosses) Into Trouble with Funders***9:57***
* Insights into Building a Culture of Greatness for Grant and Non-Grant Staff***13:05***
* What to Do When You Think Your Boss is Going to Hell or Jail***17:48***
* Uncomfortable Conversations with Bosses from a Grant Professional Perspective ***22:02***
* The Last Word with Johna Rodgers GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA***24:28***
*Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA ***25.35***
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Intro: 00:04
Welcome to the Grant Talks podcast with Lucy Morgan. Lucy is the CEO and director of MyFedTrainer.com a leading provider of grant management training and templates for federal grant recipients. This show is for grant professionals looking to gain confidence managing their grants. In an age of increasing complexity, you'll hear from leading professionals on the best practices surrounding grants, what's involved in successfully managing the grants lifecycle and how to make sure your grants are managed correctly. Now here's your host Lucy Morgan.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 00:41
Welcome everyone to this conversation with Johna Rodgers, GPC. Johna is a GPC with over 25 years in grants and nonprofits. She's been involved with over $162 million in grant awards and is currently serving as a grant consultant, national trainer for Grant Writing Management USA, State Technical Assistance Facilitator and board member of the Grant Professional Association, also known as the GPA and I'm Lucy Morgan, the host for your session. Welcome, Johna.
Johna Rodgers: 01:13
Thank you.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 01:14
I understand you are a wife because your presentation talks about calling your husband and I seem to remember seeing some adorable puppy pics in the last year or so.
Johna Rodgers: 01:24
Yes, we have added a Labrador to our family. We weren't...the kids are gone. I had to do something.
Fire Away Questions with Johna Rodgers GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan CPA: 01:30
Well, I have a couple of "fire away" questions for you to introduce you to our audience a little deeper. Are you ready?
Johna Rodgers: 01:35
I am. I am.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 01:37
As a fellow traveling trainer, what is the best piece of travel advice you would give to someone early in their career?
Johna Rodgers: 01:45
Wow. The first thing would be, stay calm. And this may be a theme with me because that is just a mantra that I have to sometimes tell myself "Just stay calm". You will get where you're going to go. So that's the first thing. But the second thing is to always ask questions. It's amazing to me how you can wind your way around the issues if you just find the right person to ask the question. And when they give you the answer, feel free to ask them another one. And I'm, I referenced specifically, airlines aren't able to tell you that when your flight can't make it to, I don't know, Kansas City, but there's another plane that's going to make it to Des Moines and you could then rent a car and drive it. They're not allowed to tell you, that it's got to be within a hundred miles. So, once you learn that your options are open and so you can say, "Okay, I understand you can't tell me, but do you happen to have a flight to this city over here?" It's amazing what you can, then they can open up and tell you lots of things. So just keep asking questions.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 02:55
That's a great tip. That's one I had not picked up. What is your favorite out of town restaurant when traveling?
Johna Rodgers: 03:01
I wish I could tell you the name of it. I don't remember it, but it was in San Antonio on the River Walk and it overlooked this lovely river and often I treat myself after my trainings. You get out at four o'clock and if I go back to the hotel, it's likely that I'm going to crash. I'm not going to get up again. So, I've gotten in the, especially the last two or three years where I'll treat myself at 4:30 nobody else's there. It's quiet. I have a conversation with my husband on the phone and then they bring this wonderful food out, so I want to it's Anthony's or St Anthony's, but it's right over one of the bridges on the River Walk and it was just wonderful. It is a perk of the training.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 03:42
That's awesome. Yeah. I had an unexpected favorite airport restaurant traveling through Phoenix with the Barrio Cafe and their pork burritos.
Johna Rodgers: 03:52
Oh my.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 03:53
Very good. What do you wish you had known when you started out?
Johna Rodgers: 03:58
There are a lot of things when you think about it that you'd want to know and I think I'm glad though that I didn't know. I think I'm glad that I really was really, really naive and dumb. Just really think I'm glad about that because I would have stressed over all the things I didn't know if I'd had known just how much I didn't know. I was talking to someone earlier today and she said, "How can you work 30 years in a field and still learn something every day?" And that would be a scary thing as a 25 or 30-year-old to think "It's going to take me 30 years to learn everything?" So, I think I'm kind of happy with just working my way through and having my crisis left and right and learning from each one and not repeating it, if possible.
Johna Rodgers: 04:51
So, the only thing I might add is I didn't know until a long, long time down the road that this could be a career, that it's actually more than just moving the paper around and doing the paperwork of it. But there are some real professionalization things to make me better at what I do. It probably took me a good 10 years of full-time grant writing to realize that I could hone some skills and would have more than your average bear. I could do a little bit more and step out, and so that took a little bit to figure out. So, it's more than just a job. It's, it's a persona. It's my attitude. It's, it is my professional bent and I've just stumbled upon that.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 05:38
Serendipity
Johna Rodgers: 05:40
Um-hmm.
Live from the NGMA Conference – Survival Tips-My Boss is Going to Hell or Jail
Lucy Morgan CPA: 05:41
Johna, in your presentation at the NGMA conference this year, you called, your presentation was called "My Boss is Going to Hell or Jail-An Everyday Survival Guide for Grant Professionals." You said you were a consultant and a problem solver. So, where did this idea of being a problem solver begin? Is it something that evolved during your career or was it, has it always been part of your approach?
Johna Rodgers: 06:04
I'm the mom that when you go to Disney World, I've got the book and I've got the schedule and I know that if we're going to get to, oh, I don't know the Space Mountain, we better get there early. That's an early ride. You get there early and then you'll do the train one. And that's across the park. How do we get there? That has always been me, is how do I plan these things out? And that's problem-solving at every turn. You're okay, well we can't get up at four because so-and-sos got to do so. And so, I'm doing that all the time and planning that out. When I was in high school, I discovered writing and I found that writing helped me think. And so that helped me to again, problem solve. And most people face a barrier or a challenge and they go, "Okay, do I just give up?" Me, I try to find is there a way to mitigate, is there a way to make it easier, better, newer? Or is it really just it can't happen? And I find seldom is it really as hopeless as we think it is and whether it's cleaning out a cabinet or, or trying to fix the car or any of those things, make a plan, work the plan. And that's what grants do. So, I think a lot of us are problem solvers. I just happened to have decided that I'm going to be one intentionally.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 07:29
I often think that life is a lot like bumper cars, right? You bump and then you back off and then you bump it back off to try and find that that path through life. In your presentation, you also talked about some of the characteristics of a great boss. Which ones do you think are most important when it comes to grants in particular?
Characteristics of Great Bosses When Working with Grants
Johna Rodgers: 07:49
With grants, there are several characteristics there and one of them is a, for a boss to have would be respecting the rules. And I, the boss gets to say yes to this and no to this and we as grant professionals have to have to respect that sometimes we're not correct. And I don't mean that we're reading a rule and the rules wrong, but the way the boss approaches that problem may not be the same way we would. I think some of us are very conservative in when we see those rules and bosses are more visionary and they push the edge a little bit and sometimes makes me uncomfortable. I don't know, I sometimes I liked that. Tell me bedtime's at 10 o'clock and we go to bed at 10 o'clock. We're not well, "But we're in the eastern time zone now." No, I don't want to talk about that. Okay. What are the rules? So, some of that comes with a little bit of maturity. You've seen it and you've survived it and it wasn't that bad. but respect that some of the rules are hard rules. Some of the rules are okay, maybe we can do it this way instead. And then being able to let it go, let the boss be the boss. And as long as he's not being immoral, unethical, or breaking a law, I get to let him be the boss. And I just stepped back. And that's difficult. That's a good relationship building thing to have with your boss too is if you go in with the boss and you are just going on "Na-na-na-na-na" and just fussing and whining at him, they will not give you the respect you deserve and they will not listen to what you're going to say. So, it's a two-way street. You want a boss that listens and respects what you do and also between the two of you, you agree on who the expert is, who knows the stuff and that should be the grants person for grants and then the boss can be the boss person for all the other things. That respect issue, I see it often lacking in boss and grant professional relationships and I don't know how to make that better but I know that it has to exist if the grant professional's going to survive there.
How “More” Gets Grant Managers (and Bosses) Into Trouble with Funders
Lucy Morgan CPA: 09:57
And you also introduced a concept that I found fascinating called '"more" and how that gets the boss's into trouble. For someone who's not familiar with why "more" (and I got the little air quotes going here) would be a problem. Why is "more" a problem for grants?
Johna Rodgers: 10:13
Well, often grants are serving a much smaller population or a service area, then your whole program might serve. Think of a health department. The health department serves little babies and pregnant mamas, but also older people. And then just your everyday kid who needs to have an eye exam. So, they're doing all kinds of things. And if they have grants, they may have a special grant that's just for moms who are about to have babies. Well, that grant may have some training in it that future moms might benefit from. Ah, but if they're not pregnant yet, they're not allowed in there. And bosses sometimes want to serve everybody, God and all the children out there. And so, we have to say, "Okay, what a great idea that is Mr. boss man or Ms. boss man, we need to take a step back and make sure we're not doing something we shouldn't be doing." Another example would be a college program where you're tutoring low-income students who have not come from a family of college goers-so a first-time college-goer Well, there are grants that say you can mentor and tutor that first-time college-goer, not every college-goer, but that one. And sometimes folks go, "But if we're just helping kids succeed, isn't that awesome?" No, no, no, no-not with those dollars. So, it's just you to have to be able and when you're working in grants to take a step back and say, "No, I think not on that one." And be willing with a boss not to be the favorite child to push back and say, "You know, that's a great idea you've had. But in this instance, we have to protect that funding source. We really can't do that. Why don't you and I go figure out how we can do it some other way." And that's my philosophy of "more." Let's not stretch the federal dollars over that line of legality. Let's, let's find another funding source to do "more."
Lucy Morgan CPA: 12:18
That was a really interesting concept that I hadn't really considered, because again, being a CPA, you tend to be a rule follower. And when the bosses aren't maybe attaching as much importance to the rules as I am, there definitely is a little bit of pushing on the comfort zone there.
Johna Rodgers: 12:36
Absolutely.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 12:36
So those are some great real-world examples of how "more" turns into a problem. Oftentimes people feel grants are being mismanaged and we might think about really bad things like embezzlement or fraud-some of the really, really bad things. But you said in your presentation that consequences happen for grants even when problems don't involve stealing. What are some of the most surprising consequences you've encountered when good grants go bad and not in the traditional sense, like a financial crime?
Insights into Building a Culture of Greatness for Grant and Non-Grant Staff
Johna Rodgers: 13:05
In a lot of organizations, especially when they first start doing grants, when they start writing and receiving, some grants, grants get a lot of attention. And so, most programs out there have more than one type of funding. And so accidentally grants can be put up on a pedestal. And this is totally not illegal, it's just a consequence. We do press releases when we get a grant. We have little parties; we have cake and balloons when it's a big one. Well Susie over there who has been working hard for 20 years on General Fund money, we never make a cake for Susie. We never get balloons for Susie. And so, you can create a world in your organization of the grants folks and the non-grants folks and that has a detrimental consequence to your organization. The grants folks feel like, "Well we have so much more work to do because we've got all this paperwork!" And the non-grant folks think that "Oh those grant folks are just so special. They get everything they want it." That is a really, an internal, totally not dealing with legal and not legal, but that has a long-term impact on the culture of an agency because of the way bosses again, don't handle that blending of the two types of monies. And I could tell you a hundred stories about that. People sometimes will, two cubby mates are sharing, they share a wall and one of them on a grant and one of them is not the one that's on the grant, gets a new computer. The one that's not on the grant doesn't get a computer. And we see that all over the place. So, it's really important that bosses understand grants so that they can be in front of those issues and love on all the little chickens, not just the grants people, not just the regularly funded. They've got to have a cohesive organization. And the OMB speaks to that in the guidance. It talks about you can't treat your grant person differently than your non-grant. They can't have a separate salary. They can't have a separate set of benefits. Everybody's treated the same. And that's a great thing for us and we should apply that in all the other ways too, not just money.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 15:23
And you raise a valid point that we sometimes forget the dynamic of how the whole organization needs to pull together. I in my career encountered a grant recipient in, this is a kind of on the other side of the coin from what you described, where the people working on the federal grants are getting the cake and balloons and the new computer, I don't know if it was an oversight or what had happened exactly, but somehow they had neglected to put fringe benefits into their grant budget. And so, the, the little local government said, "Okay, if you work on the federal grant, you don't get any health insurance." And they called me and said, "Well, can they do that?" And I said, “Well, no." That same concept of that you have to apply those policies uniformly across your whole organization applies even if they're taking the stuff away, that they're letting other people in a certain class of employees have.
Johna Rodgers: 16:11
And I've seen that same exact thing happen. We had a sub-award and the grant, the other grant, the grantee to us said, “Okay, we want to, we want to acknowledge that this grant sucked and we won.” And then they said “We did not budget enough for your staff. We did not budget enough for X.” And so, they had budgeted $50,000 for two full-time employees and no fringe benefits. And so, these existing two employees are both coming to me. One in tears thinking "How can I tell my husband that my pay just got cut? How can I tell him that? We've got little children, how am I going to?" And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to slow down. We're going to, we're going to go have a conversation. I promise you; your pay is not going to be cut. We have a salary schedule. Everybody who has this much university time, this much experience in the jobs going to make this much money. You don't worry about that. We may have to rearrange some of your time, but you're going to be a full-time employee making what you made yesterday. You don't worry. And to then here comes the other challenge. I had to go to the boss and say “Okay, this is what we have to do!” and get him to see why these two employees were kind of freaking out and his responsibility to come back and say “Okay, no, no, no, no, no” because it shouldn't be me doing that. So, having him come in and say, “Okay, yes, we're going to make this right. It might take us a few weeks to get it. You're going to get your same paycheck as always, we're taking care of it. You don't have to worry about the sausage back behind the curtain. We're going to take care of it.”
What to Do When You Think Your Boss is Going to Hell or Jail
Lucy Morgan CPA: 17:48
Very good. I want to touch back on your topic because I just think the title of it was so great. "My Boss is Going to Jail or Hell!" What is the first piece of advice that you'd give someone who's starting to feel in their gut like it might be their boss who's going to jail or hell?
Johna Rodgers: 18:05
Hello? The first thing I think I would say is “Take a breath.” Truly every time I've thought that there was a lot of information I didn't know. There is something because we don't always know the machinations of leadership and what they're doing in the wise and the how’s and the how the accounting works. Part of that is I just keep asking questions and I ask them nicely and I smile and I try to ask them almost like you would ask a preschooler about their day at school. Well, tell me about that. That's that thing they tell you with kids don't say, “How was your day?” “Fine.” Okay, that's not a good answer. It's not a good question. So, the good question is, I noticed this thing happen. Can you tell me about the decision making behind that? That seems fascinating to me. Again, try to keep it on the gee, I'm just trying to learn something here. Not that I think you did something wrong and I need to figure it out. Nobody likes that. Nobody likes being blamed. Nobody likes being accused. And probably again, you're probably wrong. There's probably nothing wrong. Nine times out of ten, I'm telling you nothing's wrong that one time, yes, it will bite you in the butt. But the nine times, no. So just getting more information in a polite and professional way. No name-calling, no shouting, trying to be solicitous and professional the entire time. Oh, and you'll be again, our mommas were right. You get more flies with honey. So, try to go at it from that way.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 19:41
And what do you think some of the benefits of approaching this type of situation, let's call it strategically, are over, just say running to HR and venting?
Johna Rodgers: 19:51
Well, again, when you run to HR and you vent, which is the first thing you want to do. It really is, you want to go find somebody who has the answer and or who knows the situation and say this is wrong. We can't do it and I can't stay here if we do-not the best decision because you're probably going to learn enough to disabuse you of that. Again, if it's not illegal, if it's not immoral, if it's not unethical, it could be a decision you wouldn't make. But that doesn't mean it's a wrong decision, just is not what you're going to do. So, I try to have people go to someone that they trust, even someone who's not at the agency. It's great if you've got a friend in accounting and you want to ask a few questions, but for a lot of us, it's the spouse. We ask our husbands or as I call it, we dump on our husbands and we just say this is what happened. And at the end of that conversation, hopefully, they have guided you to be calm and to find out more. And that's the key. Just find out a little more information and then you can make a decision. If we don't have good information, if you've got bad data in, you get bad data out. Same thing with our thinking on these types of issues. So just take a step back. And one of the things that, , when I was developing this proposal that I wish I had thought of years ago, is if I were having this same issue, having the same conversation, but on the other side, if my son, my grown sons or my grown daughter came to me and they had this problem, what would I tell them? Because I'm pretty sure I would not tell them to quit their job. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do that. But I would listen and I would be kind and I would try to give them some questions to ask and some steps to go through not to do anything rash. Obviously, if you just caught the boss stealing $5 million, that's a whole other conversation. But if he's just a or she is just stretching the line a little far, then that's probably a good conversation and you can begin to address that.
Uncomfortable Conversations with Bosses from a Grant Professional Perspective
Lucy Morgan CPA: 22:02
Well, looking back, what do you wish you had figured out sooner when it comes to these types of, let's call them uncomfortable situations where you realize that you might not have gotten a boss with all the characteristics of a great boss.
Johna Rodgers: 22:15
You have to have a little bit of braveness in you. You have to be able to approach it with some courage and be willing to back up whatever you're going to do. I try never to make an ultimatum. I can, I'm proud of myself and my career because I've come close. I've never said, "Well if you don't do this, I'm going to do this." But that's always a possibility. We can only control what we can control. And at the end of the day, I have to decide if me controlling that is too hard in that environment. Is it too hard to continue to do a good job and to be honest and ethical and law-abiding in that environment? Or is this just a one-off and we just disagree? I can repair that, that's easily done. But if it's a constant culture of cutting corners and sometimes slipping up to that line, then I have to ask myself, okay, I don't know everything, but what if one of those things I don't know is a really bad thing and I have to have an honest conversation in the mirror and say, “Is this something that is culturally approaching a line of ethics that I don't want to go to?" And if it is, then I have some choices. It's probably not going to be that I leave that day, but it's probably going to be that I'm going to consider a new place. And that gets into a whole other thing of now I've got to decide, “Okay, do I want to stay with grants or do I want to do a different kind of work? Do I want to save puppies? Do I want to save veterans?” I mean, there are so many options out there. Most of us think that if something's going wrong, "Well I can't do anything about it and I'm stuck here." No. The skillset of a grant professional leads us to many, many options. So put the ethics first, put yourself and how you feel you can work in that environment next and then know that there's good work out there for good people. You will make the transition.
The Last Word with Johna Rodgers GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan CPA: 24:28
And I think that's some great parting words. I can't think of anything that we would want to add at that point. “You cannot control, you can only control what you control” and I really appreciate that great advice and insight. If someone would like to find out more about you, how should they get in touch?
Johna Rodgers: 24:45
Well, I've got a pretty good presence on some of those social media, but on Twitter I'm @JohnaRogersGPC. I'm also on LinkedIn. You can search for me there. And if you get stuck, call the Grant Professionals Association. They always know where I am. I am happy to talk to anybody. I'm, you maybe can tell, I have a passion for helping grant professionals understand what they do and do it better and make them also understand they're not alone. There are a lot of us out there, we're just is kind of quiet. We work in silos. Nobody else knows we're here, but you can find me. I'm out there.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 25:22
Well, listeners, if you want to listen to some other episodes, I want to encourage you to go out to the Grant Talks podcast on GrantTalks.com and thank you very much for tuning in
Outro: 25:35
To learn more about how MyFedTrainer.com makes grant management more manageable. Visit MyFedTrainer.com. That's MyFedTrainer.com. You'll find all the Grant Talks episodes at GrantTalks.com. That's GrantTalks.com.
More About Johna Rodgers GPC
For nearly 30 years, Johna Rodgers has helped for- and non-profit organizations solve problems of all types and sizes. That includes 18 years as a full-time grant professional. In all, that has brought more than $162 million in grants to her employers and clients. She has a background primarily in federal proposal development and has learned to work with dozens of partners and their conflicting ideas, missions, and concerns. In the past five years, she has expanded to corporate and foundation funding as well; in fact, her favorite grant of all times is a small one that did big things for low-income children. In addition to proposal development, Johna is a GPA Approved Trainer and a Grant Professional Certified (GPC). She frequently presents at national grant conferences and is a regular trainer for Grant Writing USA. She makes her home in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
More About Lucy Morgan:
Lucy M. Morgan is a CPA, MBA, GPA approved trainer, speaker, and author of 3 books including “Decoding Grant Management-The Ultimate Success Guide to the Federal Grant Regulations in 2 CFR Part 200.” As a leading authority on federal grant management for nonprofits, institutions of higher education and state, local and tribal governments she has written over 250 articles on grant management topics featured in LinkedIn, various publications and on the MyFedTrainer.com blog.
She is a sought-after presenter at national conferences sponsored by organizations such as the Grant Professional Association (GPA), National Grant Management Association (NGMA) and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Lucy is also a highly regarded trainer whose techniques and teaching style come from real-world experience. Having faced many of the same challenges her audiences have endured, Lucy understands that what looks good on paper may not always work in the real world. Because she has been there, she provides people of all professional backgrounds with practical tools to advance their careers and make a bigger difference in the world. She can be reached at [email protected].
You can hear more about Lucy's journey into grant management in Episode 004
More Resources for Grant Professionals
Thanks for checking out the Grant Talks podcast!
In this episode of Grant Talks, we talked about a subject that you may want to know more about:
- What to watch out for with fringe benefits
So...as promised I want to share some resources that may help you on YOUR grant journey.
Click below to download a copy of:
We are all on the journey for the best way through the maze of confusing regulations.
And the goal is a supportable strategy for grant management that reduces the risk of audit findings and cost disallowance.
So, I wanted to share my Allowable Fringe Benefits Infographic with you.
This is an easy-peezy way to have the most relevant rules for allowable fringe benefit costs at your fingertips.
I hope this simple infographic will keep you on the journey to more federal grants and better grant management.
This Infographic takes a look at the two most important parts of the Uniform Guidance about fringe benefits.
Here's what’s included:
- What types of things can be included with fringe benefit costs and why the federal government lists so few examples of fringe benefits in the Uniform Guidance?
- The rules around “Employee Health and Welfare Costs” and the “danger, danger, danger” risk of going too far with keeping employees happy into the range of UNALLOWABLE entertainment and more…
These resources are designed for grant managers, just like you, and I hope that you will find them valuable on your grant journey.
Click here to download and share
P.S. If you’d like to find out how to better manage personnel costs on your grants, also check out my article on time and effort reporting requirements at https://blog.myfedtrainer.com/5-shortcuts-for-getting-a-time-and-attendance-process-in-place/
Thanks again for listening in!
