3 Reasons Why Your Organization is Dying
Your ship is sinking and you don't know why. What you do know is that if you don't shift something soon, your organization will not survive. In my years of non-profit leadership and consulting, I've had plenty of experiences in the trenches. I've sat through strategic planning sessions with knots in my stomach and sweat in my palms, but I've never left a meeting feeling hopeless - unless the leadership team decided on a direction that restricted growth. Your ship is sinking and I can tell you why. Here are three reasons why your organization is dying:
1) Your mission is all over the place. When you first started out, you knew exactly why your community needed your mission. You jumped in, ready to be the solution! But, somewhere along the way, you lost your focus. Now, your organization is spread so thin that there's no way you'll ever be able to do the work that you originally set out to do, not to mention the new work to which you've committed time and resources. The scary part is that once an organization goes down this path, it takes a very strong leader to admit the error of their ways, and turn back. The exciting part is that once your leadership team gets the courage to admit that they've lost focus, they'll be able to steer the ship back in the right direction. It will take hard work, but the work will pay off. Pretty soon, your team's morale will be at an all time high and your mission will gain unstoppable momentum.
2) You've not defined the roles of your key players. There are many factors to be considered when discussing team roles, duties and responsibilities. Oftentimes, an organization strays from its overall mission when it begins to allow its team members to stray from their individual purpose. First, let me state that all of your team members are key players. If someone within your organization holds a position that is not impacting the mission positively, there's no purpose for that role and it should be cut or redefined.
The best way to assess whether or not your team is on mission is to sit down and audit every team member's job description compared to his/her daily projects. A busy team member does not always equate to an effective team member. After auditing each job description, you may find that tasks that are crucial to the success of your mission have been going undone for way too long. Once you find the problem, fix it by steering your team member back in the right direction.
Auditing your team members' missions may also lead you to the realization that many of your team members' job descriptions have evolved and/or grown. If a job description has completely changed, maybe a new title is needed. If a job description has grown, you'll need a plan in place to also increase that individual's pay. Growth is not always bad - but it can be detrimental to your mission when the work is allowed to grow while the people doing the work remain the same.
3) You've not released your key players to grow within the organization. Your organization may be dying simply because you are slowly killing the people who you've brought in to help the organization grow. Much like our own bodies, the organization as a whole cannot grow unless each of its vital (key) players are also growing and remaining healthy.
What sickness have you allowed to take up residence within your organization? Hopelessness, fear, control, mistreatment, and corruption are all mission killers. Define your team members' roles and trust them to do their jobs. Allow them to take credit for their successes. Spotlight their hard work. Even if they grow up and out of your organization, trust that you'll be rewarded with even better team members immediately.
People who are called to work in the non-profit industry are a special breed; they love to help, but they also love to feel appreciated. Give people the space to grow and be happy. You'll begin to see great growth within your organization as a whole and an organization that was once dying will spring back to life!