Advice for Leading an Organization through a Major Change

Resource
The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger

Contents
Ten Myths, Mindsets, and Motivators
Three Myths About Change
Four Change-Friendly Mindsets
Three Motivators for Change

 

From Vince Hyman, Publishing Director, Fieldstone Alliance:

Following are ten myths, mindsets, and motivators you'll find indispensible when guiding an organization through change.

The text is reprinted (with minor adaptations) from The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger, pages 12-16. It was developed around the needs of leaders who are guiding two or more organizations through a merger. But, the advice fits any leader who is helping an organization negotiate change. The author, La Piana Associates, led by David La Piana, has specialized in organization restructuring for the past decade.

First the list, and then the explanation.

Ten Myths, Mindsets, and Motivators
Print this list and tape it to your computer, your bathroom mirror, your steering wheel, your forehead— anywhere you're likely to see it!

Myths
Myth #1: Things will calm down.
Myth #2: Planning can adequately prepare us for change.
Myth #3: We can control change.

Mindsets
Mindset #1: This is an opportunity.
Mindset #2: Everything is negotiable, except the mission.
Mindset #3: We exist to serve our clients and communities.
Mindset #4: What you see is what you get.

Motivators
Motivator #1: Make a strong case.
Motivator #2: Send a clear and consistent message.
Motivator #3: Get buy-in from the people who will carry out the change.

Let's look at the myths first.

Three Myths About Change
Myth #1: Things will calm down.

How often have you heard or said, "If we can just get through this period (the budget cycle, the busy time of year, the holidays, the layoffs, the capital campaign) everything will calm down." We think if we can just get through the present period of turmoil, all will settle down.

The Reality: Actually, "things" have never been very calm in the nonprofit world, and the political, economic, and social outlooks all point to continued chaos in the coming years. In fact, it has become generally accepted that change is a constant in our world. Drivers of ongoing change in the nonprofit sector include:

• Demographic changes, including emerging minority majorities in many communities.
• Lack of sufficient capital and reliance on a narrow a base of support, resulting in regular fiscal crises.
• Massive demands of the aging baby boom demographic group on society.
• The political, economic, and psychological aftermath of September 11, 2001.
• The trillions of dollars being passed from the WW II generation to the baby boomers.
• Ever-shifting funder priorities, often driven by the interests of a few leading foundations.
• The full weight of welfare reform and dwindling funding, particularly during economic down turns.
• The competitive force of the approximately 35,000 new nonprofits that are created each year and the entrance of for-profits into many fields once considered to be the exclusive domain of nonprofits.

Myth #2: Planning can adequately prepare us for change.
We desperately want to predict the future, and the best nonprofit leaders will approach the great unknown by creating a plan.

The Reality: No plan can fully prepare you for the human responses of your board, staff, volunteers, funders, clients, and other constituents. We plan because it is good discipline, because it reduces the impact of the unknown, and because it allows us to act assertively with regard to those things we can know. But we will still be surprised.

Myth #3: We can control change.
Judging from the number of books and articles on the topic, we must think that reading and thinking about change will somehow help.

The Reality: We cannot ever fully control change. When the economy periodically takes a prolonged dive, for example, and both individuals and foundations find themselves with less money to give, could we have impacted that development? We can try to anticipate change, try to take advantage of it, and hedge our bets, but in the end we cannot control the future. As you go about the process of organizational integration, it can be a dangerous self-delusion to imagine otherwise. September 11, and its aftermath demonstrate the impact of unforeseeable events on our well-made plans.

Be prepared to "ride" the change through which you are trying to guide your organization; you can't control it, but you can help direct others through it.

Four Change-Friendly Mindsets
There is a lesson to be learned from the myths. It is not: "Give up, we can neither predict nor control the future." The lesson is to understand what you can control and what you cannot, and to prepare to manage and govern organizations in transition in a dynamic world in which we don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone in a year. This approach might be expressed as having a change-friendly mindset.

Mindset #1: This is an opportunity.
Assume an aggressive stance toward the future: "This is an opportunity" should be your motto. Do not be daunted by impending change, and certainly do not fear it. Learn to use change to improve the management of your organization and to advance its mission.

Change equals opportunity—this mindset is contagious. If leaders exhibit it, staff, volunteers, and even the board will likely follow, at least to a degree. Be prepared for bumps in the road and respond to them with a can-do attitude. Seek opportunities in the chaos and uncertainty. It will work wonders.

Mindset #2: Everything is negotiable, except the mission.
To keep on course in a changing world, your best rudder is clarity about the difference between mission and "what we do." Many nonprofit leaders do not see a difference between mission and practice. For example, ask the director of a food pantry what her mission is and she might answer "To provide packaged, nonperishable food to the folks who drop in here." This is a fine statement of the work she does each day, but it is an overly narrow statement of the mission, which is about feeding the hungry, dignity, keeping families together, and many other things beyond packaged food.

This nonetheless typical answer leads to a tendency to resist even small operational changes because they are perceived as threatening the mission. In fact they threaten only our accustomed way of doing things. In the food pantry example, will moving from one distribution site to three imperil the mission? What about adding a hot meals component? Or initiating an arrangement for meal delivery to a nearby shelter? Of course not. Yet any of these opportunities might be presented to the food pantry and resisted as being inconsistent with the mission, narrowly defined as "what we do today."

Where does mindset come in? Nonprofit leaders need to focus everyone's energy on how to best advance the mission in a turbulent world.

Mindset #3: We exist to serve our clients and communities.
During times of change, there's internal pressure to keep things as close as possible to how they are—to maintain the status quo. To remain clear about what is most important during times of change, nonprofit leaders must remember that they are not in business to make their board members or staff comfortable and happy. Rather, they are in business to serve their clients and communities.

While a good leader cares deeply about the morale of his or her people and never forgets that an unhappy board can make life difficult, she or he does not let fears of the unknown—or resistance to change—be the determining factor in organizational decisions. Statements such as "We can't work in that neighborhood, it is too dangerous," and "Changing the board meeting day will cause us to lose board members," really reflect the needs, desires, fears, and interests of internal constituencies. The leader is challenged to respond by focusing on the needs of the clients or community served.

Mindset #4: What you see is what you get.
To motivate staff, volunteers, and board members to embrace impending change you must help them to understand the reason for the change. The leader's mindset must be that "we are hiding nothing." If the organization has a history of clear and honest communication with its stakeholders, particularly its staff and board, those stakeholders will be more likely to trust what you tell them about the impending changes. Therefore, a long-standing and absolute commitment to "transparency" in all dealings will enable the organizational leader's communication about the changes to be heard and believed. If the organization's communication has been less than open in the past (or at least is perceived by some to have been so) then continuous clear and honest communication must begin at once. Credibility is essential to change leadership.

Three Motivators for Change
The leader's role in motivating change is to define what is needed and then to persuade others of its urgency. That is, before you can expect your board or staff members to accept change, you must first help them to identify what they are experiencing as change.

For example: "Those guys want to put in a whole new accounting system! They're nuts. You're not going to let them, are you?" is the response of a horrorified staff person who sees the change as a mad intrusion by barbarians into what had been a stable world. You would prefer to hear "Changing the accounting system is going to be a real pain, and expensive. This is nuts! Do we have to?"

The difference is subtle but essential. In the second case the person is just as upset and "unsold" on the new system as he was in the first. The difference is that he sees the problem as change and he owns it as his problem. "They" is replaced by "we," and the new accounting system has been labeled as change.

A small step forward? Yes, but an essential one. Until people see themselves as involved in a change process, and until they are able to link their particular change-related problem to others throughout the organization, resistance will be highly charged, irrational, and difficult to address. Once they see their difficulties as part of the change process, you can educate them about the change itself, the reasons for it, and the potential benefits. You can then ask them to pull together behind you. Keep leadership guru Max De Pree's famous pronouncement in mind: "The first duty of the leader is to define reality."¹

Think your way through the following steps to achieving positive change:

Motivator #1: Make a strong case.
Much as you would for a fundraising effort, list in writing all the reasons why things must change in the way you are envisioning. This is for your own use. If you cannot convince yourself of the need, you will have real trouble convincing others. Keep it brief, no more than one or two pages. Resist the temptation to simply e-mail your masterpiece to the entire organization; they won't be sold. That will take a far more intensive and personal communication effort. In thinking about your case,

• Consider the situation—how did we get to this point and what needs to happen next?
• Examine the urgency—are both the need for change and the time frame envisioned clear and compelling?
• Assess the feasibility—is the change even possible? Don't ask people to do the impossible.
• Describe the problem (not the symptoms), then the consequences.
• Describe what can be done.
• Describe ways you could make things better.
• Describe the consequences of the change.

Motivator #2: Send a clear and consistent message.
Use your written analysis of the situation to craft the change message you will send to your people. Remember you must both model and champion the change that you want to happen. That means you must align your speech, behavior, and reward systems with the change. Modeling change involves a lot more than giving a pep talk or printing t-shirts. People believe the message they see you embody. Your behavior is at least as important as your words:

• Communicate the message consistently and at every opportunity.
• Start with likely allies who will be open to the message.
• Get others who share your commitment to spread the message.

Motivator #3: Get buy-in from the people who will carry out the change.
A change imposed without at least some support from those having to implement it is doomed. Examples of people "living the change" will be essential to convincing the majority of people that this is real. Do not issue sweeping fiats for major change initiatives. Find people in the organization who already think the change is a good idea and give them a chance to shine. Then celebrate their accomplishments in front of others. Let these "early adopters" be first in line for the best assignments and promotions. All this sends the message that the change is real, and mission-critical.

• Don't expect massive change to happen all at once; work incrementally.
• Find the 20 percent of the people who are ready to change and work with them first.
• Showcase their work to the 60 percent who will accept the change if it is seen as safe enough.
• Deal with the 20 percent who will not willingly change, no matter what. Some may need to go.²

Bringing about a major change is tricky. Whether you're a nonprofit leader, a funder, or a consultant to nonprofits, I hope you find the advice here useful in your work.

Sincerely,

Vince Hyman
Publishing Director
Fieldstone Alliance

October 6, 2006

Notes
¹Max De Pree, "What the Leader Owes," interview by Peter F. Drucker, in Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices, (New York: HarperBusiness, 1990), 40.

² La Piana Associates, Nonprofit Mergers Workbook Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger, (Saint Paul, MN: Fieldstone Alliance, Inc., 2004), pages 12-16.

 

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