Made to Flourish

Beyond Quick Fixes to a Thriving Organization

Shelley G. Trebesch

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780830898954
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Every organization is made to flourish. But when problems arise, quick fixes and poor leadership training can drag it down. The key to a thriving team is to look below the surface at the hidden dynamics that can cause it to lose focus, turn inward or even cease to exist. Budget problems, personality conflicts, mission drift, government regulations—all these and more can tempt us to respond rapidly and superficially.Shelley Trebesch offers leaders the tools needed to develop practical solutions that actually work. She provides a model for getting a firm hold on the complexities inherent in any team. Diagrams help readers visualize key dynamics while vivid case studies illustrate how to put the book into practice.Here is the book that gives churches, NGOs, mission agencies, parachurch groups, other nonprofits, businesses and teams within these groups what they need. Trebesch charts the path to the life-giving, holistic, fruitful abundance that God intended for organizations and everyone in them.

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A VISION TO FLOURISH

Focus on Unreached Peoples (FUP) began when eight university graduates sensed God’s call to pray for, research and plant churches among unreached peoples. The organization grew steadily, eventually numbering four hundred people (along with support staff) serving in fifteen creative-access nations.

Thirty years into the work, FUP experienced a 25 percent decrease in all areas of the organization (personnel, finances, new frontiers, etc.). The decline began when forty missionaries living in two neighboring African countries were forced to evacuate due to civil war. Two missionaries were killed in the conflict before they were able to leave the country.

The thirty-eight missionaries were immediately redeployed, although some chose to leave the mission due to the trauma. Other missionaries were given assignments within the organization—mostly in leadership and administration—and some were reassigned to safer countries with strong Christian presences (mostly to offer support to already-existing churches). The civil war was rarely spoken of again; everyone seemed to forget and move on. As the personnel and resources in the organization continued to decline, the leadership made decisions to consolidate and assigned the few new workers to contexts where there were already personnel. They didn’t start work in any new countries.

Contributions continued to decrease along with the operating budget. Support staff were laid off. Missionary budgets had not been increased for ten years. The atmosphere in the organization was tense. Most sensed and promoted attitudes of scarcity, comparison and begrudged sharing, noticing “who got what.” Of course, everyone felt they did not have enough—and they probably didn’t.

New initiatives focused on fundraising and training staff for effective support development. Five years into the decline, the board hired a new CEO who had a track record for generating income. He did, but by this point morale was so low, money could not resolve the situation.

Here was a classic leadership challenge: the law of unintended, un­expected consequences. Obviously the well-intentioned organizational leaders of FUP needed to act quickly for the safety of the missionaries caught in the midst of civil war. Did they realize, however, that they were employing a quick fix? That their redeployment interventions would have the overall, long-term impact of a 25 percent decrease in all areas of mission and potentially jeopardize the vision for which FUP exists? That the impact of the redeployment of the trusted partners of the African nationals would be betrayal and distrust? That their financial partners would become skeptical and invest elsewhere?

Stop and Think

Consider your organization or team. Try to identify some “quick fixes” and notice their repercussions, their ripple effects.

Often, leaders initiate change in their organizations or teams as a reaction to an event, a response to crisis. New policies are written or new structures implemented with minimal projection toward consequences or future outcomes. Another common approach is for leaders to search for breakthroughs and pursue the latest fads, the strategies that seem to work in the “church down the street.” Many organizational changes happen in response to the symptoms of events—what is easily observable or seen. As previously stated, these are quick fixes. If an organization is to flourish, it has to go beyond quick fixes. It has to see more deeply and listen more intently.

Made to Flourish

What does it mean to flourish?1 One definition is “to live within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience.”2 Not surprisingly, the opening chapters of Genesis also offer a sense of what flourishing means.

Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. . . . And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” . . . Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” . . . God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1:11, 20, 26, 28)

Jesus also envisions flourishing in Luke’s Gospel when he references Isaiah 61:1-2.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Lk 4:18-19)

Flourishing is also our ultimate hope as pictured in the book of Revelation.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. . . .

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.” (Rev 21:1, 3-4)

God created the world and all of us in it to flourish. Jesus came to restore flourishing to a broken world and to point us in that direction before God finally rights all wrongs and accomplishes fully what he initially set out to do at creation.

When we flourish, we experience emotional, psychological and social well-being. We are full of life—peaceful, cheerful, satisfied and productive.3 We accept ourselves as we are, knowing our strengths and weaknesses. We engage challenges, enjoy learning and embrace an overall sense of purpose. We expect our days to be useful and hopeful. Flourishing people have strong relationships and connectedness to community, contributing as well as receiving. They are curious about differences and suspend judgment for optimized learning. Sound appealing? Sound like what God might intend life to be?

Humans—created in God’s image—are meant to flourish, and in that flourishing, they learn and become cocreators with God.4 In flourishing environments, we pursue meaning and purpose. We innovate and adapt to adjust in new situations or when faced with challenges. Organizations oriented toward the kingdom of God, whether churches, NGOs, mission agencies, other nonprofits or businesses, ultimately should flourish. In other words, in a flourishing organization or team, everything and everyone is thriving.5

What does that look like? Organizations are communities of people called together for a purpose. Christian organizations—churches and companies—exist for the greater purposes of God’s kingdom. They live and work in God’s freedom-producing, life-giving, holistic reign, experiencing the wildness, adventure, fruitfulness and abundant life of God’s kingdom while inviting others to do so as well.

Flourishing organizations are thrilling in that they pursue meaningful, kingdom-of-God-oriented purposes. They make a difference in society and individual lives. A called community that participates in God’s mission is unique. The way it participates in the kingdom and partners with God for kingdom purposes is as individual as human beings themselves, and it must live this uniqueness to demonstrate the full breadth of God’s image. Ultimately, Christian organizations should be flourishing and thriving because that reflects their Creator’s image.

Flourishing organizations are

• vibrant, reproducing, kingdom-of-God communities
• called together to live in God’s reign and join God’s mission to proclaim and live in his kingdom and to, by God’s enabling grace,
• pursue their unique, God-given purpose and
• produce God’s vision of the future
• while creating an environment where individuals thrive.

Flourishing organizations are fun, satisfying, safe environments in which individuals are restored and embrace transformation into the image of Christ. They live the authentic Jesus life—attractive, joyful, contagious.

Quick Fixes

All too often, however, that’s not how leaders think about organizations, especially when problems or crises arise. That’s what happened to the leaders of FUP. Their approach of using quick fixes is all too common. They rapidly employed reactionary solutions to correct a situation. Quick fixes by definition lack research and analysis and therefore a deep awareness of the complexity inherent in every organization, department or team. Ronald Heifitz and Marty Linsky call these technical changes or solutions because they are based on know-how that already exists.6 Quick fixes may give the initial appearance of relieving the problem in the context of crisis, but in a matter of time the same (or new) problems surface again.

Quick fixes are often faddish. We see a strategy working in another organization, so we are tempted to try it out in our own context—even though our situation may be very different. As a result, the outcome is often disappointing. Researchers working with Jim Collins found that “no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment” would lead an organization to greatness.7 Therefore, the hard work of comprehensive research and discernment is necessary before leaders intervene with organizational change.

Another issue can make it difficult for organizations to flourish. After over twenty-five years of starting, leading, growing and consulting in numerous organizations, often internationally, I continually see leaders with little, if any, leadership training. Rather, they are called to captain their organizations or teams because of their character and frontline experience in other contexts. Full of good intentions and a lot of energy, such leaders still find their troubles outweighing their successes. The complexities of the venture can be overwhelming.

Made to Flourish brings to light the mysteries and complexities of organizational leadership and offers overall perspective for those who lead organizations who want to accomplish kingdom-of-God purposes. Made to Flourish encourages “adaptive leadership, . . . the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive.”8

The structure of Made to Flourish is straightforward and can be read as a whole or in parts based on the challenges you face. Chapter two introduces a model (the Ecology of Organizations, ECO) for flourishing organizations, while subsequent chapters explore the components of this model in-depth. Beyond chapter two, each chapter includes three elements: (1) live case studies that illustrate common quick fixes, (2) presentations of an aspect of organizational dynamics that promotes flourishing, and (3) effective best practices and exercises related to the dynamic being explored.

It is my prayer that Made to Flourish will help you and your teams listen and think deeply about your organization, beyond the quick fixes, and thus call forth life. It is my hope that as a result your organization will flourish.