Every organization is a success.

I say that not as throw-away wisdom or corporatease, I say it because it is the single guiding principle behind my work.  Sure, every organization has areas of improvement — especially in communications — and yes, from time to time organizations lose their founding mission and vision, either evolving or dying depending on the situation.  But every organization is a success, because it brings people together to learn, discover, engage, partner, and work together in an essential way.

As I work with organizations, I look for that success.  For example, a church community I worked with felt that it was becoming isolated from its larger community context, which in turn was depressing membership numbers.  One of the successes of that congregation was its thriving small group ministry; another was that it was losing members through attrition — relocations and passings to Congregation Eternal — rather than underlying internal conflict or strife.  The opportunity, then, becomes communicating those internal relationships to external audiences, and working on being intentionally engaged and creating a welcoming, visitor-friendly environment.  That congregation today has experienced a small but steady net increase in members each of the past two years.

When I was working with another organization, that group had just finished a large scale building project.  One of the areas of the building had been untouched in the project, save for a new coat of white paint on the walls.  When I came in and was being given a tour of the facility, my host commented that it was the area of the building that received the greatest response from participants and volunteers, because people “just can’t place their finger on what changed, but it looks great and they’re glad it happened.”

That’s how I hope my consultancies work: unobtrusive.  A fresh outlook for something that had previously been overlooked.  Membership-driven and non-profit organizations suffer from high rates of leadership burnout.  I’ve lived through that burnout personally.  We care so deeply about our work and our involvement that it can be impossible to step back and take a look at things with fresh, unencumbered eyes.  And that’s where I want to come in.

I don’t want to point out what’s going wrong, and I don’t want to overlay the current metrics and trends on your organization to guarantee future success.  Most certainly I’d fail your organization in that way, and I’d most definitely ruin my own reputation in the process.  Instead, concentrating on what works well, drawing upon those strengths and perhaps readapting them for growing opportunities or enhancing them for future success, is a stronger blueprint for organizational sustainability and longevity.