Reflections
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE CONCEPTS
By Pete Hammond
If growth is essential to life, then change is necessary and vital. But most of us recommend change only for others while we cling to our familiar routines. We even have our intriguing ways of resisting change if we are inconvenienced or threatened. As I reflect on my experiences in congregations, service organizations, educational institutions, family and community, I've discovered a few ideas about how change can be managed well. Being called to be a kingdom developer so that signposts of heaven become increasingly evident beckons me to grow as a contributor of change wherever I live and work. Here are a few reflections on bringing helpful change to an established network via its people, systems and events. (I've noted biblical parallels in each case.)
People
Each group has its priests or gatekeepers . Less than ten percent of the members of any structureset the tone, direction, language and symbols of group life--be they good or bad ones. At a school that might be the deans, department heads, a handful of students, a couple of board members, a small set of very influential faculty, or a few office staff. Similar groupings exist within a company, a family, a church, or a community. Invest in the few of these pacesetters and you will impact everyone.SystemsFor Paul & Barnabas it was often a key person in a city--wealthy cloth merchant Lydia & the slave girl in Philippi, while in metropolitan Ephesus it was a few synagogue leaders, a tent manufacturing couple, intellectuals in Tyrannus Hall, and the silversmiths union.
Welcome newcomers . Old ways of doing things, long-term or forgotten values, habits and routine ways of doing things will have to be consciously processed and explained to them. When a new employee, family member or church visitor shows confusion or even risks asking "Why is it that....?" --be sure to welcome the opportunity to review the item in question, as well as exploring the questioner's perspective. A dated tradition might be long past useability, relevance, or value, but no inside long-termer noticed. The adjustments of receiving a new person into a system is a great chance to review the whole system and adjust to the influx of fresh life. This is also true when a new generation arrives, such as when a builder or boomer driven organization receives busters or X'ers into its system.
God charged Israel to welcome strangers as a way to help them constantly recall when they were once refugees, outcasts or new arrivals. The Bible says that angels in heaven sing when a new member is brought into God's kingdom.
Every community has its problem people . They consume others as all members adjust to their acting out. Co-dependancy patterns develop, while irritation and impatience seethe below the surface. Helping these persons brings relief and hope to the surrounding victims and carries long-term positive impact, and hopes are raised among others about how their potential troubled times will be handled.
With just a few healings, Jesus impacted whole villages, and those stories preceded him elsewhere, raising powerful expectations. His interruption of a mother of two associates' attempt to engineer career advancement did not go unnoticed by the rest of the team. Jesus nipped it in the bud.
Empowerment of the folks at the edges is radical kindness and impossible to ignore. Helping any community and its leaders hear and serve the least among them hinders the awful seduction, addiction, and oppression that always accompanies power and privilege. Insulation of leaders from pain and difficulty can lead to hard-heartedness and abuse of privileges that are really on loan from God--not possessions. Do a series of gatherings or lunch forums where the little people are given voice and listened to. Use the popular TV talk-show format where three to four folks are interviewed on a panel and the inquisitor is focused on helping everyone hear them--thank you Oprah and Phil!
Jesus positioned little children on his lap amid the protests of his ambitious disciples and community leaders. That had to be talked up after he left! He often entered a new environment by connecting with its rejects, like the demoniacs of Gedara. Not the modern version of public relations--but a profound statement on the value of every person.
Every group has its grapevine that carries the vital life-blood of values, good or bad news, and common interests throughout the whole system. Keepers of the grapevine include editors of in-house publications, group leaders--some of whom are official while others surface without structural approval--or a much loved handful of veteran wisdom people, or a very cunning administrator or secretary. Injecting good news or caring for a fountainhead person can make this system an ally rather than a feared enemy.EventsJesus was brilliant at feeding the grapevine with stories, private encounters and images of faith, hope, and love. He accomplished more with less, because of his use of cunning and very memorable stories and ideas. He was a regular Monday morning topic of conversation.
There are seasons or rhythms in group life where the beat just goes on and on. But there are other times when the pace slackens and change can happen in a less stressful environment. Start-up time is often quite vulnerable to new emphases while at quarter-end everybody has their head down and are not easy to impact. Taking time to celebrate accomplishments can provide great realizations. Arrival and departure of key players are pregnant moments too. Find these moments of transition or temporary serenity and capitalize on them. You've probably heard all the quotables about timing.
Nehemiah, Esther, Daniel and Joseph each made their best moves at the right time. Remember too, that God designed the Sabbath as a timely break from routine for realization and celebration.
Every group has cracks, seams, or gaps that need filling . It takes a lot of listening and diagnosing to discern what is not happening, but is deeply desired in private ways. These should not be filled with quick solutions. Breaking an ingrained routine or an addiction is seldom achieved with a quick fix, but rather by a significant life-style change that takes months or years of hard work to develop. Complex group systems are impacted by slow, often unseen, diligent investments by people who care and are willing to do the needed due diligence. And, often, they will not receive the credit, but the whole system is better off.
Jesus just kept living into his dirty dozen and a new reality broke out after he left. He also taught that it takes quiet diligence to find the rock-like foundation below the surface to build upon. God's preparation of Jewish Moses being adopted into the Egyptian palace family and, later, being blended into a Midian wilderness sheep-herding family, taught him a whole new perspective on culture, power and leadership. Wealthy landowner Barnabas voluntarily made his resources available for the poor. These illustrate strategic provisions in needy places.
You can expand access to the power people. Break the temptation and intimidation of imperial leadership. Leaders can rotate open office hours. They can hold spontaneous floor gatherings, town meetings, or lunch table sessions where the community's pacesetters listen to the grass roots. Have board members eat lunch with two or three newcomers or basic employees, and then have the whole board do the hard work of discerning trends and threads they pick up. Avoid executive isolation.
Jesus was forever breaking out of control groups to connect with the marginalized and hurting. That was a threat to the system that worked only for the privileged. Imagine the impact at the local Rotary meetings in Colossae when they heard that community leaders and fellow slave-owners Philemon and Apphia were adopting their rebellious run-a-way slave into their family instead of executing him to set an example?!
Form some surprising alliances . Connect the isolated power-people with the unknowns in the system. Find ways to mix generational, ethnic, positional, different faith-traditions, departments, structural and gender differences. Do an occasional role or job swap. Help people hear each other so that new understandings can emerge from the collected wisdom and variety of perspectives that the Spirit can create.
God undid the Babel-like bunching of sinners centuries later at Pentecost [Gen. 11:1-9 and Acts 2] by mixing all races and nations into a new reality. The Spirit created Antiochian surprises [Acts 11:19-26] by welcoming outsiders of another race into the new faith community. This shocked the establishment bureaucrats in Jerusalem, who lived in cocoons that distorted reality. Break the defined sets that become hiding places for uniformity.
Do some exit polling with graduates, former employees, alienated relatives, or drop-outs to learn what went well and what went badly when they were with you. Good business organizations have their personnel or human resource departments do exit interviews with departing employees to get critiques of the system. It is painful sometimes, but avoidance of difficult truth will lead to something much worse than therapeutic exposure to unacknowledged problems early in the game. Former members are free to speak while others silently guard their positions.
King David's dying words to Bathsheba and Solomon are filled with wisdom and warnings about kingship dangers. Jesus' last supper was loaded with seed ideas that would blossom only after he was gone, and his followers need to know was deep and real.
Accept the fact that change is painful . It can mean loss to the little people if it is imposed by the "haves," or it can threaten the rhythms of leadership if it originates below them and erodes their position, privilege or habits. But, while being a threat to the "haves," change can bring hope to the "have-nots," or vice-versa. Either way, love needs to dominate the process and appropriate grieving needs to be done too. We need lots of help in learning how to say "goodbye" to habits, cherished structures, spaces and friends.
Jesus affirmed Thomas' doubting inquiries as healthy explorations. He challenged Peter's compulsive protectionism, while gently warning him of his impending denial when his own departure was unfolding. He took change seriously and helped people through it.
Crises in organizational life present powerful learning moments. The community is galvanized around a need, a conflict, a problem or an unplanned change. This is when the appetite for change is deep, while being very delicate. Denial only delays the need for engagement, processing, and adjustments. Organizational trouble is a commonly perceived reality at all levels and it should be engaged while it is hot. This is when leaders really need to do major work.I think of the Noahic flood, the plagues in Egypt, the captivities of the Hebrews, Jesus' challenge to synagogue abusers, or the trial, conviction and execution of Christ. During these awful times, God had people's attention and He spoke clearly.
Un-orchestrated or unexpected blessings create moments of change. A new family member, a surprising gift of money or travel, a new friend or a break in the grinding routine all create hope. Any new venture in the existing structure has its element of surprise along with accompanying confusion. The pervasive question becomes, "Will it benefit all or a few?" And each inquisitor usually has one person in mind--themselves. Now there is a challenge for leadership!
Moses, Miriam, Aaron and Joshua faced this as they prepared to enter the long awaited land of milk and honey. That was a delicate blessing that could be shared by all, or it could divide the troops. Jesus' feeding of the 5,000 got the attention of his followers and the surrounding communities.
Voluntary sacrifice by a group member releases new vitality and hope within the community. The sad and predictable pattern of sinners who cling to privilege and possessions or who engineer personal gain at the expense of others is broken when someone lets go of their position, place or power. Everyone notices that kind of interruption. Gifts without strings bring new life, and can often trigger broad-based generosity that enriches everyone.
The incarnation of the Son of God described by Paul [Phil. 2] is the ultimate illustration of this--Jesus let go of all he had a right to so that others might have new opportunity and hope! The Hebrew prophet Hosea will be forever remembered for his sacrificial love for his deeply troubled and sexually addicted spouse.
Find ways to affirm the lessor gifts or little people in any group. Remember, for all the blessings of special gifting, some tend to dominate while others bring irritation. Some gifts get acceptance and acclaim, while other portions of the body are invisible, ignored or even buried. The body can only function well as all parts are affirmed, cared for, and connected. People are every organizations' premiere asset.
Jesus was forever bringing marginal folks to the fore--women, children, lepers, the poor. The early church was charged to care for widows, slaves and exposed-children--and the whole world took notice. Paul wrote the Corinthian church about the awkwardness triggered by some special gifts, and how to develop love and appreciation for every one [1 Cor. 12-14].
Change is never easy. I am amazed at my propensity to preach growth--and resist change!? No matter how dangerous a favorite habit or a comfortable routine can be, I'm inclined to never stop because the familiar is addicting and safe. Family therapists understand this. When a troubled member of a family group tries to change, every other member of the system resists in order to protect the routine they know so well--no matter how destructive it is. For all its perceived safety and comfort, this is really slow death--like the proverbial frog in the kettle of slowly warming water. He dies without ever being aware of the growing problem. The same pattern is deeply entrenched in companies, governments, churches and communities. Innovation is criticized. Re-structure is challenged. Re-location is sabotaged. Newcomers are marginalized. New products or services are questioned. The familiar chant, "But we've always done it this way" is sung again and again without realizing its death-like addiction to the past. Sooner or later, that tune becomes the seven last words of system.
In this light, the incarnation of Jesus Christ takes on new meaning for me. Change for God's troubled children was not possible without outside intervention. Love compelled God to act in our behalf when we could not even acknowledge the problem, much less engineer a solution. I sense that good leaders should consider similar initiatives for the sake of their people too. But, we must also remember that the initiator of change will suffer as did Christ. But a greater good for all deserves doing. What needs changing in your world?
"Pete Hammond is a PCUSA elder, a veteran InterVarsity staff member who directs the Marketplace® division, and is the creative developer, team leader and chief contributor to the new Word In Life Study Bible . He and his wife Shirley live in Madison, WI., and commute to Chicago regularly to see their grandchildren."
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