Expectations of Our Organizations (Colin Buckland)

Change is a fact of life. However, there are times when change occurs and we feel that we're powerless to stop it or even have any input into the change occurring.  How can we deal with this aspect of change?  Today's guest has some thoughts on this, next on MemCare by Radio.

Welcome to another edition of MemCare by Radio.  I'm Scott Hollinger and I'd like to thank you for allowing me to share this time with you.  Change!   As surely as the sun rises and sets, we know that change is always happening.  We get up in the morning and maybe notice another wrinkle.  Or, we measure our children and find they've grown another inch almost overnight.  Or the product we have always purchased has a new look, or worse has disappeared from store shelves forever.  But what about when an organization, such as the one we work for, goes through change and not just small changes, but sweeping changes?  It can cause us to feel overwhelmed and powerless.  Colin Buckland is back with us today with some thoughts on how we can adjust and work effectively within the change that's taking place. 

Colin, what should our expectations be of the organization and what should the organization be looking for from us? 

Initially, the organization needs to be helping others apply their wisdom even in the decision of change.   So, it's very helpful if we get a maximum buy-in, if you like.   I don't mean by that that we should manipulate and sell it to people, but we should talk about the reason we think change is required.  We recently talked about future stuff in organizations, so we have people who are looking out there at the trends.  So they're not caught off guard as an organization by what's coming down the road.

Right!

And if we can do that then we can talk organization-level about what we see and what that would tend to suggest.  So for example, in terms of the mission world, career missionaries…  We can see that the term ‘career missionary’ is going to go out of vogue because the post-modern idiom is the short term bursts of life bites that's going to have a dynamic affect while actually, if we know that that's happening we can prepare for that.

Right.

…by discussing what our response would be and doing that in a way that as leaders we don't assume that everybody else is stupid and that we're the wise ones.  But actually to bring up these conversations and invite comment from our teens because our teens are actually filled with wisdom.  So, I use the term, ‘mining the corporate wisdom’.  If we mine the corporate wisdom in times of change, we've got a lot more exposure to the information taking place plus the organization.  People have a great level of understanding.  People are more prepared for what's coming.  They feel empowered.  They feel motivated and part of the process.

Right.

Well, I can see that!  I think about the person who is doing their Christian work, wherever they may be, they're seeing every day the little changes that take place and they're looking at maybe ways they're going to have to adapt.  So what you’re saying sounds common sense to me that we would look to our people who are out there, wherever ‘out there’ may be, and ask them "What is happening in your part of the world when it comes to how you share Jesus Christ with the people, with how you do you work?" 

We're talking about leaders as change agents. I think that leaders have not been trained to be change agents so we have a lot of well meaning people doing the best that they can do but because they've not been helped to understand the dynamics of change and what that does to the human being, they do their best.  They want to serve the Lord as best they can.  They do their best, but frankly their best isn't good enough because it's uninformed best.   So what I think we need to do is help our leaders to understand the dynamics of change, and how to be change agents and to be a change agent doesn't mean I persuade everybody to move around to my own point of view, but I help people to grasp what is happening, what's liable to happen and how they can adjust to it.

As the leader, maybe it's a particular region, maybe it's not necessarily the leader of an entire Christian organization…  How should I as a leader go about seeking out this kind of information particularly if it has never been asked before, and I'm listening to this and I'm saying, "You know what, that's a pretty good idea that Colin just came up with.  I think I'd like to do that, but I'm not sure they're going to buy it whenever I ask them for their opinion."  How would you suggest that we go about this? 

That's a good question.  There are groups and there are some represented on the internet that engage in future studies and like anything else on the internet, there's a bit of a mine field there, so we need to be fairly comfortable with the source.  By that I don't mean look for the people that are saying what I would like to hear, but look for the people who are coming from a solid platform and a solid philosophical background and read -- read what they're saying.  Actually, I can take more notice of the news and I can take more notice of innovation.  I can be more in touch with world trends.  I can read some of the authors like Thomas Friedman and his book -- I think it's called "The World is Flat", where he's demonstrating some of the dynamics that are both present and future and we can, if we're on our own somewhere, we can begin to get an understanding of what's going on there.  One of the best things to do is to form a future studies group within an organization who develop the skills to look and start to bring, perhaps initially bring, people in from the outside who have honed those skills, help to facilitate our thinking so that we can actually develop those skills for ourselves.

Right!

When I shift the focus back to the Christian worker, what kind of questions can they be asking the organization?  Or should their expectation be they want to know if they're still going to be needed by their organization on the other side of this change, and how do we work through that?

That's such a deep question I think.  I say it's a deep question because my experience has shown me that a lot of people aren't secure in those organizations, so we're constantly hearing of organizations, even Christian organizations, who will release people at a moment’s notice and thrust them into a very insecure period where they never thought they would be. 

So it's the mature organization (I don't mean mature in terms of old, I mean in terms of people thinking, people consciousness), that will entertain those kind of questions. Even if they don't know, it's better to say to somebody “We don't know what the future is going to look like. Here are possibilities…” than actually trying what I would call ‘pull the wool over their eyes’ and say “Well don't worry, don't worry, Trust the Lord”.  There's nothing wrong with trusting the Lord, of course, but that really is just ducking the issue and I think it's an honest leader and an honest organization that says we're moving into uncharted waters, we don't know what the future's going to look like.  We're going to stick together.  We're going to stay together.  We're going to do what needs to be done, but of course that lays out a few possible scenarios which could mean that some of us could no longer work in this organization.  As a matter of fact, that's happening at a commercial level/corporate level all the time.  Unfortunately, they're not always handling it well.  So people are left high and dry and terribly abused.  When a company could say that their financial future was rocky, they didn't make preparations for what could be the inevitable, they just left it, as if they were sticking their head in the sand and hoping for the best.  “Let’s just hope for the best.  I think we should work for the best”.  When it's about people, we should give them the best even if it might mean their future will be uncertain.  Let's have those conversations in a warm and honest fashion.

One thing I remember was when the one location I was at was downsizing and it was due to technology.  We didn't need as many people to do the work that had been done previously and one couple whose job was no longer needed were just -- they were blown away by it.  I was very thankful that Trans World Radio worked with them and was able to help them get into another organization where this couple was able to use their skills in much the same way that they had done for Trans World Radio with another organization.  When I read their prayer letters today, I read of a couple who had to absorb an awful lot of change, got moved to the other side of the world and yet five years later are thriving and it's clear from their letters.  I know that not all stories have that kind of a happy ending, but I think about it and at the time they were just devastated by the change that was about to occur.  There was loss of identity.  There was almost a feeling of betrayal because they had planned on being with TWR for the rest of their career.  All of a sudden that changed.  Yet, as an organization, Trans World Radio helped them through it and I think they grew through it.  That's a story that did have a happy ending. 

There are a couple of things we can do in those circumstances.  One is about what I call the low cost of security.  Where is my security?  Is it in the organization?  Actually, I think the answer to that often is yes because I've not learned perhaps to get security from my faith.  There's almost a disjointed dynamic of faith that is quite common where I know in my head that I'm a son or daughter of the king but actually it doesn't make its way to my every day.  So the organizations can help to encourage people with their low cost of security to actually place that in God.  Of course right now with the rate of change, that's a very good thing to do because nobody can be quite sure of the longevity of an organization.  That's one thing we can do.  The other thing we can do is what I call career path planning, where although it sounds crazy in the light of the post modern dynamic we've talked about, it's looking at helping people to look at what their career anchors are.  We have a new ministry called the ‘career anchor imagery’ so that they know that whatever they go ahead and do from now on, those dynamics will need to be there.  Otherwise they're never really going to quite find joy in what it is that they're doing.  Well, once we've helped them with that career anchor, we can then help, perhaps, through our HR department to relocate.  If we downsize, there are two ways of doing that, isn't there?  One - chop it out so that people just are left high and dry.  Or, plan for downsizing by helping to relocate people according to their career anchor.  Who are you?  Where would you best serve?  Let's help you do that.

Colin Buckland sharing with us the expectations we should have in the midst of change.  You've been listening to MemCare by Radio.