Altruistic Murkiness

(Posted on Isaac Hunter's blog)

Let me introduce myself, I’m Jeff—I get the opportunity to work along side Isaac and some pretty special people here at Summit. Isaac asked a few of us to blog-in while he is away this week. He suggested I write to all of you about managing people in ministry and to give a few thoughts on how managing people is similar or different to the for-profit context.

OK. I realize I just lost 92.3% of my reading audience! But, hey, Isaac thought it was important, so here goes…

First, a little about why I might have some thoughts about this subject. I have had a weird career! I have spent a total of 26 years in management positions. What’s weird is that 8+ of those years have been in for-profit organizations. 18- of those years have been in non-profits.

While real differences in the for-profit and non-profit contexts do exist, fortunately, I think most of the principles are universal. After all, in each case we are managing people. Peter Drucker, considered to be the father of modern management, spent the later part of his distinguished career writing about leading and managing non-profits. Here is what he said in his book, Managing the Non-Profit. “People decisions are the ultimate—perhaps the only—control of the organization.”

These decisions are the same in either non-profit or for-profits organizations. Who do we hire? Who do we fire? Where do we place people? Who do we promote? How do we train? In my experience the most effective organizations (for-profit and non-profit) have well developed protocols and management approaches.

The principles for effective decisions are well documented and way beyond the scope of today’s blog-in for Isaac. So, where to go from here? In the remaining space, I want to speak those in the non-profit world with a few simple thoughts.

First, management is not necessarily a bad word. Let me give you one that is perhaps more palatable—stewardship. If people are our greatest resource (and they are), then spending time and energy to help them be effective is time well spent. It’s just good stewardship. And by the way, it’s good management.

Next, non-profits have the challenge of what I’ll call “altruistic murkiness.” Say what? In a non-profit, we are susceptible to think that anything we do is the right work—because we are doing it in the name of altruism. However, the opposite is true. Because our “product” is changed lives (which is difficult to measure); and because we usually are operating on limited resources, the non-profit has a greater need to be clear with employees and volunteers as to expected results.

Finally, Drucker has a thing he calls “The discipline of organizational abandonment.” All organizations, especially non-profits, need to steward their resources to produce the results of fulfilling the organization’s purpose. What I think Drucker is saying..Only do things that fulfill the mission. Stop doing things that don’t. Applied to managing our people, non-profits often are too slow at addressing poor employee and volunteer performance. We just can’t bring ourselves to do something about ineffectiveness. And when we don’t, we end up hurting the organization we so dearly love, the people that organization is trying to help, and even the poor performing employee/ volunteer who is trying to help.

To sum up, the principles of managing people (recruiting, screening, selecting, orienting, giving assignments, training, managing, and evaluating) seem to be universal. The differences that exist are in ways they are applied—due to the distinctives and nuances of each context.

There is obviously much more to explore here. So, for the 7.7% of you still reading, I’d love to get your thoughts at www.jkern.com.

Comments

[Scott Davis]

Jeff, thanks for the blog post. I especially appreciate the reframing of management as good stewardship. We can often have an anti-management anti-corporate attitude in the non-profit world that becomes an excuse for avoiding the hard decisions and taking responsibility.

[Patte Carter-Hevia (happy to be part of the 7.7%)]

Jeff, nice to see you blogging again! I enjoy reading your perspective on issues. I'm going to piggyback on what Scott said and just add that an example from my line or work (education) is that the most important concept for teachers and administrators to grasp is that we do not teach content (math, English, science, etc). We teach STUDENTS. I often think that concept gets lost; once the concept is lost, so are the students. Assuming responsibility is vital.

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