Having a steady mind as your organization changes

How Social Sector professionals can set up a personal performance system to thrive in an organizational change process. 

My work with Social Sector organizations often puts me in contact with groups undergoing internal change processes. These small or large seismic movements seemed unusual and dramatic to me at the beginning of my career. Over time, I realized that organizational restructuring was common in the nonprofit world, and that certain patterns and themes repeat themselves as organizational tectonic plates shift over time.  Each organization no matter the type, size or focus goes through change. While the  timeline varies, the process of redefining a mission, structure, teams, and way of working, is universal to these Social Sector organizations. 

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Another key commonality of  organizational change processes is the pain and fear that these re-organizing efforts cause to people who work in these organizations. I experienced this emotion  myself the first couple of times  this happened to me. I asked: Am I going to lose my job? Was our work not valued? Has something changed about the issue that we are working on? My reactions ranged from mild discomfort to extreme fear and mental paralysis, as I considered how to respond,  and the right actions to take. I see my fellow Social Sector workers caught somewhere on that spectrum and projecting these emotions into areas of life and within the professional environment on a day to day basis. 

That same old organizational change again
Change is constant across all organizations, whether an official process is ongoing or not. Invisible change is happening all the time, and  eventually builds to a larger wave that moves the organization. This larger change moment happens every few years. It can be precipitated from an external or internally induced shift in leadership, an external crisis, or internal scandal. 

In the best possible scenario, an organizational change process is a periodic opportunity to  positively reset a mission, structure, teams and way of working. It is always worth making a sporting try of participating in this process, and helping to form the organization that reflects your experience and ideas. This change process is the Social Sector equivalent of a recession or merger, that shakes up a private sector company.  An organizational earthquake episode is a chance to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies while getting  better at core tasks. 

In the worst case scenario, The head of the organization forms a team. This team hires a consulting firm,  who redraws the organizational organogram to connect in different places, and changes the group’s mission statement. Life and work remain the same but everyone has to memorize and throw out a new set of acronyms to describe the same teams and interest groups. 



All jokes aside, if the people in charge have the collective good in mind, and the team is competent, the organization ends up better at the end of the process. The organization can become more efficient, more aligned with a new strategy, and better able to help the cause or group that they are there to serve. If the process goes poorly, the organization redraws the lines, tweaks the mission statement, and then nothing changes. Either outcome is possible in your case. You will not be able to know the results for a long period of time, while life and work continue to roll out. 

Mindsets, strategies and tactics for thriving amidst organizational change
As we learned at the top of this post, ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IS COMING! And NOTHING CAN SAVE YOU.  Except yourself, your plans, and your mental strength when change happens. Some of the key systems that we should all have in place are our  mission, mindset, finance, network and skills:

Mission: Our organization has a mission statement, but do we have a personal mission statement as a professional and humanitarian? Putting our own personal mission statement in place, can anchor our own contribution and stability in turbulent times. Aligning our choices and action around that personal mission statement can provide a decision making rubric for tough calls. Hopefully, this statement aligns with the projects and organizations where we spend our precious and scarce time and brain power. If it does not match, we  may need to look for better alignment at another organization or cause. 

Mindset: Recognize your position of strength. If you and I work for an international organization, government or non governmental organization, your professional salary puts us in the top percentage of global earners. We may even be close to the global 1%, probably putting us in a secure position. We are probably in the top 10% of earners in the USA, if we earn   a mid-range salary level in a Social Sector organization. Are we thinking and acting  like a top 1 or 10% person in this situation? Or are we acting victimized by circumstance and putting ourselves in a mentally less powerful position? Using the Antifragile concept for the Social Sectors, this organizational change disruption could even be a boon if we have the orientation and systems in place to reap that benefit. This change could be happening for us, and our careers in the Social Sector, rather than to us. 

Finance - Have your ‘Screw You’ money in place. This is a bank account with between 3 and 12 months of money to cover your basic living costs, that allows you to walk away and not compromise your personal principles and mission, when our organizations change around us. We all need to overcome our fear of money issues, and get this fund in place in advance (or build it now) so that when the inevitable organization change ‘crisis’ arises, we have that buffer ready. 

Network: We all have to develop to be our best selves and workers on our Social Sector mission. One essential part of being the best is developing a Natural Network of people around you who share your love of doing good, and want to help each other get to their maximum contribution. This is an all the time activity, not just something that you do when you see the organizational change crisis. 

Skills: We can build up and renew our skill sets well in advance of any organizational change process so that we develop ourselves as highly skilled learning entities that can roll with any professional change. 

Finally, sometimes organization change leads to  losing our jobs or eliminating our projects. After suffering through this wringer several times, I’ve shared some approaches for this process in an article on losing your job, getting a new one and making that process seamless that can help in this situation.  

How we all make it work 
Despite the commonalities that I list above, every situation is different. Let’s all figure our own steady mind techniques that we can start now, well before any organizational change disturbs the calm ocean. If you are in the midst of that disruption and just coming to these ideas, it is not too late.  We can start working on these coping skills anytime, and put in place the small threads listed above that combine over time to create your own safetynet of strategic steadiness over time.


Happy Trails

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