wings made of wax will fall out of the sky.
a tree with no roots will fall. a vision without a support structure will fail. a human without the nervous system capacity and tangible resources needed to hold what they are creating will collapse (eventually).
do not build your vision on the assumption that you will sacrifice yourself in the process
the first time i led an organization, i was managing the implementation of someone else’s vision. yes, i treated that business as if it was my own, but there wasn’t really space for dreaming or creating something new. the target had already been locked in. my job was to get us there.
when i accepted the role as the leader of a $5 million nonprofit with 70 staff members and thousands of stakeholders across three states, the leadership context was different. the international chartering organization had set forth a refreshed vision and strategic objectives for the entire movement just a few years before but the “how” was still anyone’s game.
the forced marriage of the three legacy organizations that created the need for a new ceo (me) was born out of this renewed vision (and a national restructuring). the newly minted successor organization that i was brought in to lead was already a couple of years “behind” in implementation of new movement-wide initiatives and programming as merger discussions had lingered over the course of two years.
despite the fact that each of these three legacy organizations was chartered by the same organization and shared the same mission and brand, the internal playbooks were entirely different. the staff (of just one of these legacies) could show me a list of their program activities for the year–18 pages, single-spaced, typed, front and back–but they couldn’t tell me how those activities led to the mission impact we were charged with.
what had drawn me to the organization was its mission–leadership development for girls–and the research that said girls want to lead because they want to make a difference. they don’t resonate with traditional “command and control” leadership structures. and yet, each of the legacies was operating under some form of command and control leadership.
the merger committee (and all of the staff who had been waiting for answers for two years) wanted me to make the final decisions about how to merge the tactical aspects of the operations. the org chart (i was presented with multiple options). the budget. the policies and procedures (which legacy’s policies would “win out” in the end), which phone system, which IP vendor and so on.
but i was interested in a different questions:
were we actually built (or being built) to carry out our vision and mission?
were our stated cultural values being lived and breathed or were they just nice words in a document somewhere?
were we role modeling our commitment to helping girls develop the skills, capacity and belief to lead from any seat in the way we ourselves were conducting our operations?
in other words, were we developing the leadership skills in our staff and our volunteers that we claimed to be developing for girls?
were we who we said we were?
and if we weren’t (yet), then how were we going to (re)build the plane (while it was in the air) to increase the chances that we would actually arrive at our intended destination (and impact).
i was 100% bought in on our movement’s vision. and i wrote my own vision statement for how the regional organization i was leading would step into our own becoming in support of that vision. this was the vision i held until we could come together as staff and write a collective vision statement of our very own (born out of the hearts and minds of the staff themselves).
i had a very clear idea of the leader i wanted to be even though i hadn’t personally experienced a leader like the one i envisioned. between my own experiences with authoritarian leadership and the context i was now in, i knew that i had to be a leader who helped grow other leaders.
i was also clear on the “inputs” (e.g., the support, personal practices, boundaries and resources) that i would need to be able to show up as that leader each and every day. and for a while, i was able to stay connected to this version of myself; in spite of the incredible–and sometimes mind-blowing–challenges and obstacles we faced while transforming an organization from the inside out.
during this season, i was introduced to the Lippitt-Knoster framework for managing complex organizational change (there are various iterations of this model available on the interwebs). this framework identifies the elements that must be present in order for complex change to be successful within an organization (in other words, the root structure):
vision + consensus + skills + incentives + resources + action plan = success
the framework also speaks to what happens to the complex change effort if one of the roots is missing:
without vision -> confusion
if we don’t know where we are trying to go, why we are going there, what this vision has to do with our values and mission, and how we are going to measure success, the tendrils of our effort might reach far and wide, but they are scattered and lack the critical mass that is necessary to effect long-term change.
without consensus -> sabotage
imagine everyone in a boat, each person with an oar. one oar going in a different direction, sticking straight out or down in the water, or even just pulled out of the water, is going to shift the momentum (and possibly the direction) of the boat. consensus is not the same thing as unanimity, but that is something to be explored at another time.
without skills -> anxiety
imagine you were asked to swim 1500 meters, freestyle, but you actually didn’t know how to stroke and breathe at the same time. even if you wanted to be successful, you might feel really, really anxious. without the right skills and conditioning, being asked to swim 1500 meters will feel overwhelming (at best) and deadly (at worst).
without incentives -> resistance
“what gets measured gets done. what gets rewarded gets done repeatedly” (credited to John E. Jones III). because change is scary, because change is perceived as risk, understanding the what’s in it for me (and what’s in it for you) can help us contextualize that change and increase our sense of safety and motivation. lack of incentives is not the only explanation for resistance (more on this soon), but incentivizing, recognizing and celebrating small wins along the way can create a positive reinforcement loop; especially when we are just beginning to build momentum. by the way, it is really easy to misalign incentives resulting in unintended outcomes.
without resources -> frustration (and demoralization)
have you ever been asked to do something you didn’t actually have the resources to do? what happened next? were you frustrated because you were in a “no win” situation? did it feel easier to give up than to keep asking yourself to show up for a losing proposition? did you give up before you even began? or did you try to keep going–running up against your limits and barriers over and over again– eventually depleting yourself to the point of burnout or illness?
without an action plan -> false starts
we can have all the great ideas in the world, but if we do not have clearly defined action steps, it is likely that we won’t ever begin (or we stop and start, stop and start, stop and start). we don’t have to know all of the steps in advance. but we do need to know the first few. and as we take those actions, we build our self-trust, self-belief and capacity to take the next steps after that. action reinforces action.
once we have developed the foundational root structure to support our change effort (growth, expansion, vision, creation), it’s critical that we tend to those roots; checking in from time to time to make sure that our root system and our vision are still aligned. this isn’t about guaranteed results or perfection. this is about asking ourselves whether the roots are supplying the energy, nourishment, and support that feed the vision. because if they aren’t, then the vision will die on the vine.
i once heard that the canopy of the tree is a reflection of the root structure beneath. if the root structure is healthy and lush, the canopy is healthy and lush. and vice versa. if the roots are withered, malnourished, and don’t have everything they need in which to thrive and grow, the canopy will reflect that. the same is true of vision.
i embraced the complex change model at the organizational level. we invested time and energy into building consensus (to a fault in the early days, but we learned some very valuable lessons and adjusted our process based on what we learned).
we were regularly asking ourselves if our people had the skills, resources, and incentives needed to do the work we were asking them to do. did they feel valued and supported? did everyone understand how and why their role was so important in bringing this vision to life? were we helping them grow into the leaders they could be and into the leaders we needed them to be if we were going to “live out” our vision and mission?
we developed clear goals, action plans and metrics and operationalized our cultural values. we checked in on our progress (and took the time to integrate lessons learned and shift course as needed) at least quarterly. holding the mission, vision and culture at the forefront always.
we weren’t perfect by any stretch, but we were constantly checking the distance between where (and who) we were and where (and who) we aspired to be. and working to close the gaps we saw between those benchmarks.
but i was also impersonating a superhero.
when i got to that organization, i knew what i needed to thrive as the leader. but as the stakes got higher, as i lost the one person who had been tethering me to any sense of being resourced and held,
as the cumulative stress (of both my personal and professional life) and compounding effects of undiagnosed ptsd mounted, as anxiety propelled me through the day and nightmares chased me through the night, my reliance on my old survival strategies–hyper-independence and hyper-performance– increased. i had been ignoring and bypassing my own needs for support for so long, i didn’t fully understand that my own root structure was withering. i trusted myself to hold my organization–or at least i did when i began–but i didn’t know how to hold myself.
i knew that organizations are made up of human beings. who bring their own challenges, fears, traumas, stories, beliefs, and emotions to the work you are doing each day. i knew that the vision was bigger than me, and because of that, i needed all of these other people to thrive in their roles if we had any chance of being successful. i was attuned to the fact that the people i was leading were human and that they wouldn’t thrive without the right supports in place.
but i forgot that i was human too.
the last piece of my complete offering suite is coming. the program that weaves it all together. stay tuned or get a sneak peek below.
Love, Booth