OD180 Nonprofit Management Letter #54

Janaury 2011
Are You Fit for Service? A Pop Quiz

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! In a second break with custom, I offer this personal reflection on organizational change.

As always, I welcome your questions and your comments. Write to me anytime at davidnorgard@OD180.com or connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter - all at OD180.

Peace,
David

OD180 Values

Courage in Commitment... Creativity in Approach... Honesty in Communication...
Generosity of Spirit... Steadfastness of Purpose

OD180's Three Specialties

Board Training & Development
Organizational Assessment & Strategic Planning
Development Assessment & Planning

A Personal Reflection on Organizational Change

It is that time of year. We have made our personal New Year's Resolutions. Whether or not we have a witness to attest to our intentions, we have solemnly sworn to lose weight, exercise more, study harder, work less, pursue our dreams, learn Spanish, cut up a credit card, save more, and whatever else some talking head on a cable news show may have persuaded us to attempt.

The only problem is that we are starting at a disadvantage this year. The fact is we have made such promises to ourselves before. So, right out of the gate, skepticism and cynicism affect the confidence of our stride into our bold new future.

Change is hard. I suppose that is why so many people make such a good living at offering ways to make it easier. Anywhere and everywhere we encounter programs and advice and coaching and counseling and herbal concoctions and "apps" to help us effect the changes we do indeed sincerely desire. We look for the way to change...but, of course, what we are lacking is not so much ways but will.

The same is true on the collective level. We hire, we fire; we raise money, we spend money; we launch initiatives; we let initiatives slide. There is an ebb and flow to what we do. There is movement. Yet it falls within a pattern, usually within parameters of comfortable familiarity. Rarely do we truly change the course of the river of our actions.

Change is hard. I see this as a consultant all the time. Leaders of some faith community or secular nonprofit become anxious about their situation. Numbers they would want to see rise are falling and vice-versa. Good people are beginning to lose faith or hope and the wrong people seem to be gaining influence and authority.

They are concerned enough to seek some outside counsel. So they call and we talk. Plans are made. Training is offered. Implementation timetables are prepared. Some actions are taken - mostly in good faith, I should add. Yet all too often, the fever of urgency eventually lifts and the slide back to contentment - or at least resignation - happens without much friction.

Marvin Weisbord, renowned organization development consultant and author of several books in the field, writes about a four-room apartment in which most of us live. The four rooms are contentment, denial, confusion, and renewal. The presumed scenario is that we start in the first and sequentially move into the last. Strategic planning or some other project of change initiation is typically commissioned at the table in the room of confusion, with the expectation of moving into renewal with renewed faith, hope, and clarity.

But what happens all too often is just the opposite. Rather than moving forward, we settle back into either denial or contentment. To mix metaphors, we buy an excursion ticket when what we need is a one-way adventure pass.

So, what does it take to break the pattern and initiate serious, substantial, lasting change? Rivers change course in one of two ways. Either some dramatic event such as a once-in-a-century storm suddenly carves a new channel or the slow yet steady power of erosion gradually creates a new reality out of the day-to-day.

In human terms, change requires either crisis or perseverance. Weisbord puts it well in organizational terms: change happens one meeting at a time.

Still, irony remains. In order to be single-minded as to purpose, it often behooves us to be open-minded with respect to method. The mindset that is successful at implementing change is one that is at once immutably loyal to a cause and yet imaginative as to strategy.

As you begin this New Year and decade, I hope that you achieve whatever change you seek, personal or professional. As a sign in a West Hollywood shop window says, "Don't ever waste your days not doing what you dream to do." And so my New Year's wish for you is for no crises but rather for perseverance in the journey toward your goals and an equal measure of creativity in finding your way there.

NOTE

The previously promised list of the top ten resources for nonprofits will appear next month in the February 2011 Management Letter.