Lately I have been working with a couple of congregations to help them change their approach to leadership.  Ugh.   Getting an organization to change is difficult.  They know it, I know it.  But we try. 

The good news is they want to change.  Good start.  In both churches we enjoyed frank and detailed discussions about their leadership using the first three of four workshops I developed for this sort of thing.  (Summaries of the content of the four workshops are available at Schedule A Workshop .  Look for the Nonprofit Leadership Seminar Series. For a series of short articles on leadership and change, see the Transformational Leadership article category.)

They admit they need change, and they want to change.  This is a healthy beginning for any organization that wants to become more effective.  

My particular shtick in the organizational development world happens to be working with organizations that are dependent upon — and driven by –volunteers.  These are organizations that might have paid staff, but cannot accomplish their mission without volunteers.  In this regard a volunteer-driven religious congregation is no different than any other volunteer-driven nonprofit, just a different mission.

It’s About Volunteers

So, we talked about volunteers.  Why are they so important for our mission?  What are effective and ineffective ways to recruit volunteers?  To manage volunteers? 

What’s the difference between a volunteer at the board or council level in an organization and a volunteer working at the committee level, or a volunteer who has agreed to do one or two time-limited tasks (I call these special volunteers “power dots”)?  What does a new volunteer mean for our mission? 

Then I Drove Away

At the end of our time together, they affirmed that the ideas I shared will be helpful.  They seemed encouraged and motivated and thanked me for providing a new way of thinking about leadership in their congregations.  Cool.  Then I drove away…wondering…what, if anything will happen?  What, if anything will change?  And when?

Change is difficult.  So, we agreed that in a few months I will return and talk with them about their progress and about how they might evaluate (measure) their improvements.  This will be a good opportunity to ask them:  Has anything changed? 

More Slow Change

During our sessions together I hounded them about the hard-to-accept reality of slow change.  Change in any organization takes a lot of time.  Be patient.  Don’t give up.  Change always takes a long time, change in a volunteer-driven organization seems to take longer.

As I was driving away, I wondered when they might enjoy the fruit of the cool things we talked about in the workshops.  I was also very aware that my own congregation struggles with the same thing — slow change.  Just because I teach this stuff doesn’t guarantee fast results.  Even the most motivated congregations change slowly. 

A New Model For Change: Bit By Bit, We Muddle Through

I am reminded of something I read a long time ago in graduate school.  Have you ever read something that so dramatically disrupted your assumptions you never forget it?  It happened to me.  I read an article over fifteen years ago: The Science Of Muddling Through, by Charles Lindblom.¹ .  He wrote it decades before I read it — which goes to show how resilient his ideas are.  Lindblom was a economic policy analyst and was writing about the slow, incremental nature of policy change.  Few, if any, changes in public policy are large, sweeping, dramatic changes.  Most change occurs slowly, over time, incrementally.  Lindblom called it a process of “successive limited comparisons”.  I call it making small improvements bit by bit, and never giving up.    

Local nonprofit organizations are the same as large government agencies.  When it comes to change, we are sluggish.  We might change, but slowly, bit by bit, if we can stay focused on making small improvements in the right direction — so that where we are tomorrow is a bit better than were we are today. 

Leading Slow Change

I think the true test of effective transformational leadership is when a leadership team sticks to the long term plan for change even when the changes are small.  A leadership team is effective when it clings tenaciously to each incremental change, as long as its in the right direction.

So, here are a few tips for a leadership team seeking organizational change:

• Keep your eyes on the long term outcome.  Never lose sight of what you want the organization to look like in five years.
• Be satisfied with incremental changes, as long as they are in the right direction.  Be patient with small changes as long as what you are today is better than what you were yesterday.
• Do not give up. 

© Copyright by Jeffrey Y. Harlow, PhD (2010).

1. Lindblom, Charles (1959).  The Science Of “Muddling Through”.  In Democracy And Market System,  1988.  London: Norwegian University Press.