Change, schmange.  I’m tired of talking about change¹  We’ve kicked the dead horse.  Effective organizations are mission-mindful and effective organizations focus on changing actual behaviors.  OK, we get it.

Shoot Me Now!  I’ve Got A Few More Questions (Not Many Answers)²

It occurred to me this morning while I was cooking breakfast for the girls³ – I have a few more questions.  Actually, I screwed up.  In previous articles I ignored a few important ideas.  I fell into a trap that snags many of us when we talk about organizational effectiveness. 

Here’s the snag:  When it comes to change, are we talking about individual change or organizational change?⁴  Which change are we measuring?  Of course its hard to separate the two.  Organizations are made up of individuals working together toward a common mission.  An organization cannot change if the individuals that make up that organization are not willing to change.  All true.  At the same time, as an organization changes its individual members are more likely to follow a similar course of change.  Also true. 

Individual Or Organization?

What matters more, the individuals or the organization⁵ ?  Again, can we separate the two?  Let me stir the pot with a few more perplexing questions:

• Is it possible for an organization to accomplish its mission effectively even if some of the individuals in the organization do not cooperate fully?
• Can a leadership team be effective if it worries too much about the individuals who do not cooperate fully?
• If we agree (Do we?) that the organization’s effectiveness is our primary long term goal, how do we measure organizational change without getting too distracted by individual change?
• How might these questions apply (if at all) to the Church?  (All this sounds a bit “un-churchy”…are we to ignore individuals?)

This much I know (I think):

1. Most of the time, organizations change slowly. 
2. We can’t ignore the individuals in our organization.  So, we need to learn how to manage the tension between the short term need for individual change and the long term need for organizational change. 
3. Effective leadership happens when the tension between individual change and organizational change is managed patiently.
4. Effective leadership recognizes the synergistic relationship between an organization’s effectiveness and the effectiveness of individual members. 
5. Consider this also: An organization is more than the sum of individual parts.⁶  Changing a large bunch of individuals is a great start, but the sum of all the individual changes is not the same as changing the organization.  Organizational change includes structural changes, missional changes, leadership style changes, and all the resulting changes in interactions among the parts – all resulting in much more than a sum of individuals changing.       

Slow Change, Effective Leadership, And Worms⁷

My new worms are teaching me about slow change.  You’d think 250 worms would be quick about changing my garbage into rich soil ⁸ .  Nope.  The change is slow, sometimes imperceptible, but it’s happening.   Organizations change slowly.  What about leadership when change is slow?  

• Effective leadership watches over slow change carefully and patiently — without losing site of the mission and the need for the change to continue. 
• Effective leadership never loses sight of the mission and remains the primary advocate for mission mindfulness throughout the organization — even when change is slow.  “Be patient, be patient, don’t be in such a hurry…”  Do you remember that song?  It’s about a snail, not worms, but both are slow (and gooey). 
• Effective leadership respects both individual and organizational change, together.  Effective leadership learns to juggle two “balls” — nurturing individual changes while also monitoring the entire organization’s slow progress toward accomplishing its mission.    

Mission-mindfulness and change are hard to maintain.  They are hard to measure.  They are even harder to measure if we care about the health and well-being of our individual members as well as the effectiveness of our entire organization – because the two are not necessarily the same.

© Copyright by Jeffrey Y. Harlow, Ph.D (2009).

1. Not really, I like to talk about change.  But talking about change and experiencing change are not the same.
2. Here we go again…lots of questions, waiting for a few good answers.  You can read Transformational Leadership: Lots Of Questions, Waiting For A Few Good Answers, and As Far As I Know .
3. I should have been paying closer attention to the eggs.
4. Actually, I did address this question a tiny bit in my August 17 article, Let’s Make A Difference: Obsessing About Effectiveness.
5. It’s a short step to ask this question: What matters more, an effective individual leader, or effective leadership for the organization
6. You might recognize #4 and #5 as part of organizational systems theory, a cousin to family systems theory.  There are oodles of books and articles about systems theory and systems thinking.  My favorite is an unlikely source, written by a theoretical physicist about ecological systems!  Check out Capra, Fritjof (1996).  The Web Of Life: A New Scientific Understanding Of Living Systems.  New York: Doubleday.  Briefly, organizational systems theory suggests that an organization is like a living organism with many different parts co-existing interdependently (like a web of life).  The whole of the organization is more than the sum of its parts because of the interdependent interactions among the parts.  The individual parts (members) are shaped and influenced by the organization, which in turn is shaped and influenced by its members.
7. For another article on slow change in organizations, see More Slow Change: We Muddle Through .
8. Check out my version of worm theology in Worm Obsession: Very Applied Theology