Meet David Paule | Professor & Consultant

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Paule and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, how do you think about risk?
(Note: this is Dave, not Ailena, answering this question.)

I find this to be a very interesting question, especially because I have older siblings who believe a life lived without risk is a win.

The definition of risk is “a situation involving exposure to danger.” My undergraduate degree is in aerospace engineering. Engineers are trained to always be looking for potential failure. “Risk” is anathema to our training. (Only lawyers are worse.) And yet, without risk there is no progress. Shortly after graduating college, I was hired to develop aircraft dispatch software at Delta Air Lines. If you think about it, the least risky option is to never fly the planes at all. Safe, but not very practical. So, the first adjustment to my thinking was to approach my work, and (subsequently) my life, from a perspective of risk optimization.

Risk optimization is a process whereby you try to minimize the negative consequences and maximize the positive consequences of a decision by paying attention to their respective probabilities. In other words asking first, what is the worst that can happen? And, second, what is the likelihood it will happen. Now, balance that against the best things that could happen and the likelihood of them occurring.

For example, I work with college students, mostly juniors and seniors. We often talk about how to approach a career search as they get closer to graduation. In recent years, I’ve seen students become absolutely horrified at the idea of calling a stranger. Literally mortified. When I ask them why, the answer is always, “Suppose they get mad?”

Let’s put that into context. What’s the worst thing that happens if they get mad? They aren’t going to kill you or burn your house down. The worst that happens is that a friend you don’t have currently continues not being a friend. What’s the likelihood that is going to happen?

Having spent the bulk of my career at Delta, I can say that it, as a company, does a great job of teaching this. Culturally, the company places tremendous emphasis on safety. Everyone, no matter what they do, accepts that if they don’t do it to the best of their ability, people could die. On one hand, that is a tremendous amount of pressure. On the other hand, it is also empowering. Because, at the end of the day, if everyone is still alive, then everything else can be fixed.

That has formed much of my leadership philosophy and approach to risk. If everyone is alive, everything else can be fixed.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Talk about myself? Oh, gosh. Okay.

Professionally, the easiest way to describe me is that I am a builder and a teacher. My corporate and nonprofit career has focused on building new organizations and helping existing ones jump up to the next level of performance. Sometimes that has been a turn-around; other times it has been the development and implementation of a radical new strategy. In business literature, I’m described as a “transformational leader.” I tend to think of myself more as just someone who is not motivated by routine.

To an outsider, my career path probably looks a little disjointed. Most of my professional career was spent at Delta Air Lines, where I held a number of roles and “honed” my organization-building skills. When I retired from Delta, I spent ten years working with nonprofits that needed to turn-around or rebuild. This included stints in the performing arts, environmental law, and healthcare.

I will admit this looks odd to an outsider. After all, what does an opera company need with an aerospace engineer?

I think the defining element of my career is that I have never been willing to define myself narrowly. I’m not just an engineer. I’m not just a leader. Some may say this makes me a dilettante. I think, instead, I’ve just found a way to transport kills and competencies I’ve learned in one part of my career to applications in other organizations in need.

There is one dominating theme to my career: I care deeply about the quality of leadership, both my own and the leadership of others. There is a concept that the best way to learn a topic is to teach it. So, for most of my college career, I have taught leadership and strategy classes at the undergraduate and graduate level. I began teaching at Mercer University’s Stetson School of Business and Economics, before moving to Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business. I’m proud to have been part of GSU for over 18 years now.

My teaching career, until recently, was always my side-hustle, but it paid immense benefits in my “day job.” Always focusing on teaching leadership and strategy has always kept me focused on applying it in my professional life.

Over the course of my career I have led a lot of disparate groups, including pilots, lawyers, doctors, orchestra musicians and opera singers. (Note, I have a high tolerance for arrogance.) I think the basis of my success has been that I never led other engineers. If I had led engineers, especially early in my career, I think I would have become stuck in that paradigm. Instead, because I have led groups and organizations where I have often had little technical proficiency, it made me a better listener, learner and (hopefully) problem solver.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Ah, I love Atlanta.

I am biased towards in town, especially Midtown and Virginia Highland. I live in Virginia-Highland, VaHi to locals. It is a fun walking neighborhood with a great food scene. Highland Tap has great steaks and the best martini in the city. Mai Kitchen, a new-comer, has incredibly good Vietnamese food. George’s is a dive with my favorite burger in the city.

The physical and emotional heart of the city is Piedmont Park. Almost everything fun and important takes place in or near there. Pride, the Peachtree Road Race, the Dogwood Festival, and the Jazz Festival all “live” there.

Speaking of Festivals, we have a lot of them. In addition to ones mentioned above, almost every weekend, some neighborhood or community is having a festival with great food, music and art.

No trip to Atlanta is complete without a visit to the Beltline. Similar to the Highline in New York, the belt line connects parks, communities and entertainment in a seamless walking & biking loop around the city. I live along the east side trail, which can be picked up in Piedmont Park. Ponce City Market is a ten minute walk south of the Park and is home to a large number of restaurants, funky shopping and boutiques, and interesting performance venues.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Shoutout to Linda Wise McNay, Ph.D.

A little over ten years ago, Linda founded Our Fundraising Search. At Our Fundraising Search, we help nonprofits build and grow high-performing teams using proven strategies for fundraising excellence. Our services include Fundraising Effectiveness & Search; Strategy & Campaigns; and Intelligent Governance.

We weren’t always this broad in scope. The company began from a single premise: the best way to help a nonprofit deliver its mission is to help a nonprofit effectively fund its mission. And that starts with getting the right people in the job.

We started out helping one nonprofit find their first development director. Today, we help a dozens clients every year find talent, set a new direction, and move up to the next level of performance.

Linda herself is a nonprofit legend. Her background includes work with both higher and secondary education, the arts, and human service organizations, and has included work in capital campaigns, annual fund, planned giving, membership, and development & executive search. Linda earned her Doctorate in Philosophy of Higher Education from Georgia State University; a Master of Business Administration specializing in Personnel Administration from the University of Kentucky; and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.

While still an integral part of Our Fundraising Search, these days she has turned over the day-to-day management of the operations and client service to her team so she can focus on the things that really have personal meaning for her: teaching, training and developing nonprofit professionals who are at an earlier stage in their career. Books, lectures, and seminars have always been an important part of the company, but with her additional focus, Our Fundraising Search has become an important thought-leader in the field of nonprofit leadership.

Website: ourfundraisingsearch.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmpaule/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-paule/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OurFundraisingSearch

Youtube: @davepaule3929

Other: dmpaule.com

Image Credits
Images courtesy of Our Fundraising Search & Services, LLC. All rights reserved.